Is the Industrial Product-Service System Really Sustainable

As the product-service system has shifted from its original concept to the Industrial PSS, its scope has expanded to include industrial products. Furthermore, the overall goal of reducing environmental impacts has been left behind. Despite the PSS's potential as a business model for a more sustainable production and consumption system, the mere addition of services to conventional products does not necessarily lead to a reduction of environmental impacts. This paper aims to discuss the concepts related to PSS, the need for considering environmental impact reduction as a critical issue for sustainability, and the role of ecodesign practices in the development of PSS

Fat deposition of parotid glands

AbstractParotid gland parenchyma histology may be altered by local or systemic, pathological or non-pathological conditions.ObjectiveThis paper aims to highlight the fatty degeneration of the parotid gland, a not well-known non-pathological condition.MethodIn a retrospective study, we collected a series of 6 patients which presented a swelling of the parotid, but even after extensive research, a diagnosis was not reached.ResultsThrough the retrospective analysis of records we found fatty degeneration of the parotid in an MRI scan of all patients.ConclusionThis condition, despite being physiological and expected with aging, may be related to clinical and radiological swelling of these glands

Consensus formation on a triad scale-free network

Several cases of the Sznajd model of socio-physics, that only a group of people sharing the same opinion can convince their neighbors, have been simulated on a more realistic network with a stronger clustering. In addition, many opinions, instead of usually only two, and a convincing probability have been also considered. Finally, with minor changes we obtain a vote distribution in good agreement with reality.Comment: 11 pages including 7 encapsulated postscript (*.eps) figures; to appear in Physica

Seleção em diversos ambientes pelo BLP como alternativa à anava conjunta

Plant breeders often carry out genetic trials in balanced designs. That is not always the case with animal genetic trials. In plant breeding is usual to select progenies tested in several environments by pooled analysis of variance (ANOVA). This procedure is based on the global averages for each family, although genetic values of progenies are better viewed as random effects. Thus, the appropriate form of analysis is more likely to follow the mixed models approach to progeny tests, which became a common practice in animal breeding. Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) is not a "method" but a feature of mixed model estimators (predictors) of random effects and may be derived in so many ways that it has the potential of unifying the statistical theory of linear models (Robinson, 1991). When estimates of fixed effects are present is possible to combine information from several different tests by simplifying BLUP, in these situations BLP also has unbiased properties and this lead to BLUP from straightforward heuristics. In this paper some advantages of BLP applied to plant breeding are discussed. Our focus is on how to deal with estimates of progeny means and variances from many environments to work out predictions that have "best" properties (minimum variance linear combinations of progenies' averages). A practical rule for relative weighting is worked out.Os melhoristas de plantas em geral conduzem testes genéticos em delineamentos balanceados, ao contrário do que ocorre com o melhoramento animal. É possível selecionar progênies pela ANAVA conjunta, com base nas médias gerais de cada família. Sabe-se, no entanto, que os valores genéticos de progênies são melhor representados por efeitos aleatórios. As formas de análise dos testes de progênie que parecem mais apropriadas são as que seguem a metodologia de modelos mistos, como no melhoramento animal. Segundo Robinson (1991) o Melhor Preditor Linear Não-Viesado (do inglês, BLUP) não é um método, mas uma propriedade dos estimadores (preditores) dos efeitos aleatórios e pode ser derivada de tantas maneiras diferentes que tem o potencial de unificar as teorias estatísticas de modelos lineares. A presença de bons estimadores para os efeitos fixos e componentes da variância torna possível combinar informações de diferentes testes por algumas simplificações do BLUP. Este trabalho exemplifica as vantagens do Melhor Preditor Linear (BLP) aplicado ao melhoramento de plantas. Procurou-se ilustrar como proceder com estimativas de médias e de variâncias de progênies obtidas em diferentes ambientes para produzir preditores que tenham propriedades "melhor" (no sentido de variância mínima entre todas as combinações lineares entre as médias de progênies). Derivou-se uma regra prática para a produção dos pesos relativos de cada ambiente. O BLP, em alguns casos, é também não-viesado produzindo BLUPs a partir de lógica mais direta

On the Empirical Relevance of the Transient in Opinion Models

While the number and variety of models to explain opinion exchange dynamics is huge, attempts to justify the model results using empirical data are relatively rare. As linking to real data is essential for establishing model credibility, this Letter develops a empirical confirmation experiment by which an opinion model is related to real election data. The model is based on a representation of opinions as a vector of $k$ bits. Individuals interact according to the principle that similarity leads to interaction and interaction leads to still more similarity. In the comparison to real data we concentrate on the transient opinion profiles that form during the dynamic process. An artificial election procedure is introduced which allows to relate transient opinion configurations to the electoral performance of candidates for which data is available. The election procedure based on the well--established principle of proximity voting is repeatedly performed during the transient period and remarkable statistical agreement with the empirical data is observed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Comment on "Universal and accessible entropy estimation using a compression algorithm"

In a recent Letter [1] a framework for estimating entropy was introduced and applied to one-dimensional and two-dimensional systems. In this Comment we show that the method is not well suited for estimating entropy in bidimensional systems presenting long-range correlations.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figur