Programed asynchronous serial data interrogation in a two-computer system

Technique permits redundant computers, with one unit in control mode and one in MONITOR mode, to interrogate the same serial data source. Its use for program-controlled serial data transfer results in extremely simple hardware and software mechanization

Distributed Computer System Complexity Versus Component Simplicity: Their Effects on Software Maintenance

Theissueappearstodependontwodiametricsofinformationsystemarchitectures: componentsimplicityandsystemcomplexity. The smaller (and more n~ous) the systemcomponents, the simpler they are to deal with individually (lower software maintenance costs) but the harder it is to deal with the overall system (higher software maintenance costs). This research seeks empirical quantitative and qualitative data from IS system and application software analysts, designers, programmers, testers, and customer service representatives to determine whether the complexity of a distributed computer system has a greater effect on software maintenance than component simplicity and what the explanatory factors are

STATER NV: E-Servicing Strategies

After two years of online experiments, Tom van Vianen, CEO, felt certain it was time to fully implement STATER NV’s new “e-servicing” concept with a cohesive strategy. Established in 1997 in The Netherlands and headquartered in Amersfoort, STATER had 27 business clients and serviced over 80 different mortgage portfolios of more than 450,000 mainly residential loans in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Their mortgage service operations and information systems were considered state-of-the-art in 2002, but they were moving business online while simultaneously increasing the types of services provided and expanding operations into Spain, France, and Italy—within the next five years. In a land known for taming the forces of the sea, Tom faced what seemed like a sea of “e-uncertainty.” What exact roles should STATER play in an online loan market? How should they position themselves to lead in those roles? The E-Servicing Steering Committee looked to Tom to direct them, and he knew he needed a clear vision for the next steering committee meeting in two months, in May 2002

Role of Toll-like receptor 9 in mouse lung inflammation in response to chicken barn air

Lung dysfunction due to exposure to air in high intensity livestock barn operations is a common problem for workers in these facilities. Exposure to this air has been linked to disorders such as chronic bronchitis, occupational asthma, organic dust toxic syndrome, and chronic cough and phlegm. These symptoms have been linked to higher levels of endotoxins in air in chicken and swine barns. However, there are many other toxic molecules such as bacterial DNA and gases capable of inducing respiratory inflammation. Bacterial molecules are recognized through highly conserved pattern recognition molecules called Toll-like receptors (TLR). While lipopolysaccharides are recognized by TLR4, bacterial unmethylated DNA binds to and signals through TLR9. As a prelude to understanding the biology of TLR9 in lung inflammation, it is important to precisely clarify their in situ expression in the lung. I determined expression of TLR9 in intact lungs from cattle, pigs, dogs, horses, mice, and humans. Two samples from normal lungs of cattle, pigs, dogs, three from horses, and two from inflamed calf lungs were tested. Five normal mouse and three normal human lungs were similarly tested as well as 5 human lungs with diagnosis of asthma. The expression was determined with multiple methods such as Western blots, immunohistology, immunogold electron microscopy and in situ hybridization. Lungs from all the species showed TLR9 expression in the bronchial epithelium, vascular endothelium, alveolar septa, alveolar macrophages, and type-II alveolar epithelial cells. Immuno-electron microscopy detected TLR9 on the plasma membrane, cytoplasm and the nucleus of various cells including macrophages. In situ hybridization demonstrated TLR9 mRNA in the bronchial epithelium, vascular endothelium, alveolar septa, alveolar macrophages, and type-II alveolar epithelial cells of mouse and human. Asthmatic human lungs showed many more inflammatory cells expressing TLR9 compared to healthy lungs. In cattle and horses, pulmonary intravascular macrophages showed robust expression of TLR9. Depletion of pulmonary intravascular macrophages in horses resulted in significant reduction in total TLR9 mRNA in the lungs. Having determined that TLR9 expression is similarly expressed on many lung cell types in mice and humans, I determined the role of TLR9 in barn air induced lung inflammation by exposing TLR9-/- and wild-type mice (6 per group) to single or multiple days (5 and 20) in a chicken barn. Each exposure was of 8 hours/day duration. The TLR9-/- mice exposed 5 and 20 times showed significant reductions in TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma expression in lung lavages as well as cellular changes consistent with reduced lung inflammation such as reductions in the number of lung neutrophils. This suggests that barn dust DNA, acting through TLR9, contributes to lung inflammation seen in response to exposure to chicken barn air. These fundamental data advance our knowledge on the cell-specific expression of TLR9 across a range of species including the humans and demonstrate that TLR9-/- partially regulates lung inflammation induced following exposure to chicken barn air

Assessment Methods for Innovative Operational Measures and Technologies for Intermodal Freight Terminals

The topic of freight transport by rail, is a complex theme and, in recent years, a main issue of European policy. The legislation evolution and the White Paper 2011 have demonstrated the European intention to re-launch this sector. The challenge is to promote the intermodal transport system to the detriment of road freight transport. In this context, the intermodal freight terminals play a primary role for the supply chain, they are the connection point between the various transport nodes and the nodal points where the freight are handled, stored and transferred between different modes to final customer. To achieve the purpose, proposed by the EC, are necessary the performances improvement of existing intermodal freight terminals and the development of innovative intermodal freight terminals. Many terminal performances improvement is have been proposed and sometime experimented. They are based both on operational measures (e.g. horizontal and parallel handling, faster and fully direct handling) and on innovative technologies (e.g. automatic system for horizontal and parallel handling, automated gate for data exchange) inside the terminals, with often-contradictory results. The research work described in this paper (developed within the EU project Capacity4Rail) focusses on the assessment of effects that these innovations can have in the intermodal freight terminals. The innovative operational measures and technologies have been combined in different scenarios, to be evaluated by a methodological approach including to other an analytical methods and simulation models. The output of this assessment method are key performance indicators (KPI) setup according to terminals typologies the proposals and related to different aspects (e.g. management, operation and organization. In the present work suitable KPIs (e.g. total/partial transit times) for to evaluate have been applied. Finally, in addition to methodological framework illustrated, a real case of study will be illustrated: the intermodal rail-road freight terminal Munich-Riem (Germany)

Exploring Media Influences on Individual Learning: Implications for Organizational Learning

Individual learning in organizations is an important activity to be nurtured for corporate procedures, policy, and knowledge sharing. One essential mechanism for individual learning is communication, increasingly occurring via multiple media environments. Understanding individual learning effectiveness depends on our ability to understand and predict media effects. Since recent research on media richness theory suggests that its central proposition does not hold, we explore why this may be. Within the context of communications among individuals in three media environments (asynchronous online, synchronous video conferencing, and face-to- face), this research explores individual perceptions of media and outcomes through individual cognitive communication processes. We link cognitive learning theories and their influence on individual learning and media perceptions to media theories. Results suggest that asynchronous media allow time to pause and reflect during learning, playing an important role in determining an individualís perceptions of media and learning outcomes. This study presents an important contribution to studies of media, technology mediated learning, and individual learning in organizations

Adsorptive Trapping of Bio-oil Compounds onto Activated Carbon

Industrialization and its long-term effects on the environment are receiving increased scrutiny from both political and environmental pundits questioning environmental sustainability in a time of globalization. Traditional fossil fuels have been the center of criticism for rising carbon emission levels in the Earth’s biosphere. A cleaner, renewable, and carbon neutral fuel will be necessary to compete with fossil fuels on the global market if industrialized societies continue to implement policies curtailing emissions. Lignocellulosic biofuels can help fill this role for the planet’s energy demands, specifically, thermochemical conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to produce usable hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. Fast pyrolysis and torrefaction are two methods being developed to produce bio-oil from lignocellulosic biomass. The complexity of the bio-oil mixtures produced from these methods presents technical challenges in the catalytic upgrading of the bio-oil into biofuels and processing of the bio-oil in current industrial equipment. If cost efficient catalysts and process equipment are to be used in the upgrading processes, separation strategies will need to be implemented to simplify and stabilize the bio-oil mixture. Strategies were studied for the separation of bio-oil vapors from pyrolysis and torrefaction processes through trapping and thermal techniques. Activated carbon acted as the experimental trapping component. Model compounds were used to represent specific compound groups of bio-oil vapors. The effectiveness of these separation strategies was studied using an SRI gas chromatograph through the use of retention times and dynamic temperature profiles employed on the adsorbent trap. Adsorption behavior of the model bio-oil vapor compound groups over activated carbon traps was also studied with the SRI gas chromatograph and explained as the process in which the adsorbent reaches saturation and excess analyte that does not adsorb travels through the column. The adsorbents were then tested in the use of a pyroprobe to examine separation effectiveness for real bio-oil vapor mixtures. Lastly, the adsorbents of interest were characterized for heats of adsorptions, surface area, pore size, pore volume, and analyte capacity. Methoxyphenolic compounds in bio-oil vapors adsorb the most strongly to the activated carbon active sites compared to other components found in bio-oil vapors. This strongly bonding principle for methoxyphenolic compounds has been demonstrated by the study of residence time of methoxyphenolic compounds over activated carbon and activated carbon traps implemented in pyrolysis systems. The methoxyphenolic compounds adsorbing stronger than other bio-oil componen is the most desirable outcome for separation of the bio-oil component families as the methoxyphenolic compounds present significant hazards to downstream catalytic upgrading. It has been observed that levoglucosan in pyrolysis vapors can be thermally trapped onto activated carbon in pyrolysis units. The capacity and surface characteristics of new and used adsorbents have been analyzed with thermogravimetric analysis and physical adsorption characterization. The capacity analysis has shown methoxyphenolic compounds have the highest capacity of model compounds test at all temperatures. It has been shown that activated carbon loses surface area after use as an adsorbent of model bio-oil compound vapors. This loss in surface area, however, apparently leads to negligible loss in capacity of the components desired for trapping

Analysis of practise and training of volleyball set in youth teams.

Název: Analýza nácviku a tréninku nahrávky u mládežnických družstev Cíl práce: Cílem mé práce je analýza nahrávky u nahrávačů mládežnických družstev ve volejbale. Jedná se o mladší a starší žákyně. Převážně se budu zabývat druhy nahrávek, tréninkem nahrávek, jejich nácvikem a využitím v tréninkových jednotkách. Abstrakt: Práce je určena pro začínající volejbalové trenéry, trenéry volejbalu, i zájemce, kteří se zajímají o problematiku nácviku a tréninku nahrávky u mládežnických družstev ve volejbale. Práce obsahuje kapitoly týkající se herního výkonu, herních kombinací, samotné nahrávky a také její diagnostiku. Analýza nahrávky je provedena na základě dotazníkových odpovědí vybraných trenérů z volejbalových klubů v celé České republice. Klíčová slova: Volejbal, nácvik, trénink, nahrávka, nahrávačTitle: Analysis of practise and training of volleyball set in youth teams Objectives: In this work I tried to analyze practise and training of volleyball set at setter in youth teams. Above all I will be deal with types of sets and practising the sets. I will examine their training and using in training units. I will be also concetrated on the person of setter. I am intrested in what is supposed to have the skills and abilities. Abstract: This thesis is dedicated to all volleyball fans and mainly to volleyball coaches who are interested in problematics of practise and training volleyball set in youth teams. It can be also dedicated to volleyball coaches who are starting with their career. This thesis contains of chapter from history of volleyball, performance of game and the analysis of set, the set itself, division of set and skills and abilities of setter. This analysis was based on the questionnaire responses of selected coaches from volleyball clubs in Czech Republic. Key words: The volleyball, practise, training, set, setterSportovní hryFakulta tělesné výchovy a sportuFaculty of Physical Education and Spor