La Gestione della Supply Chain in ambito SA 8000: il caso Gucci Logistica

La presente tesi di laurea si basa sull’applicazione dei principi etici e di responsabilità sociale delle imprese, contenuti all’interno della normativa internazionale SA 8000, alla Gucci Logistica. In particolare, per le peculiarità dell’azienda e del settore moda a cui appartiene, l’attenzione si concentra sulla catena di fornitura, che rappresenta l’elemento di maggiore criticità e che quindi necessita di adeguati meccanismi di monitoraggio e controllo. Sono perciò stati definiti degli strumenti per la raccolta, classificazione e valorizzazione delle informazioni, che permettono di fornire evidenza della conoscenza della filiera produttiva e di identificare i soggetti a maggior rischio, programmando cicli di audit nell’ottica del miglioramento continuo

Social diversity: a look at tourism

This paper addresses the issue of social diversity, with reference to the phenomenon of tourism in Italy. Social inequality influences numerous socio-economic phenomena: tourism has been scarcely examined under this perspective. Tourism has significant effects at social level: both on travellers and on the inhabitants of the visited regions. Italy that is one of the most important touristic nations is significantly affected by the phenomena we are studying and, therefore, is an ideal context to analyse and identify the characteristics of tourism and its interaction on various aspects of social diversity. We could consider the interactions on tourism by persons with different economic and social conditions, race, gender, age, religion, mentality. These issues are usually considered by qualitative approaches. This paper attempts to give a quantitative dimension to these phenomena looking for possible statistical and administrative sources. We examined some, direct and indirect, official sources of the National Statistical System and other sources disseminated by European projects and research institutions. To get a more detailed picture of a particular form of social tourism, we used the data provided to us by a very active association in this area. This study is only a first approach in order to find a strategy to help assessing some quantitative characteristics of accessible tourism. The development of this type of tourism shall imply actions, techniques, and policies aimed at reducing the problems about social diversity in the sector, in order to make tourism become a factor of social inclusion

Social diversity: a look at tourism

This paper addresses the issue of social diversity, with reference to the phenomenon of tourism in Italy. Social inequality influences numerous socio-economic phenomena: tourism has been scarcely examined under this perspective. Tourism has significant effects at social level: both on travellers and on the inhabitants of the visited regions. Italy that is one of the most important touristic nations is significantly affected by the phenomena we are studying and, therefore, is an ideal context to analyse and identify the characteristics of tourism and its interaction on various aspects of social diversity. We could consider the interactions on tourism by persons with different economic and social conditions, race, gender, age, religion, mentality. These issues are usually considered by qualitative approaches. This paper attempts to give a quantitative dimension to these phenomena looking for possible statistical and administrative sources. We examined some, direct and indirect, official sources of the National Statistical System and other sources disseminated by European projects and research institutions. To get a more detailed picture of a particular form of social tourism, we used the data provided to us by a very active association in this area. This study is only a first approach in order to find a strategy to help assessing some quantitative characteristics of accessible tourism. The development of this type of tourism shall imply actions, techniques, and policies aimed at reducing the problems about social diversity in the sector, in order to make tourism become a factor of social inclusion

Proposed methodology for verification and validation of medical electrical equipment

Orientador: Vera Lúcia da Silveira Nantes ButtonDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Hoje boa parte dos equipamentos eletromedicos (EEM) possui algum tipo de controle realizado por software; esse controle pode ser restrito a um ou mais subsistemas do equipamento, ou ainda ser total. A partir do momento em que o software representa papel fundamental no controle de EEM ele deixa de ser um risco intrinseco do equipamento e deve ser analisado com o mesmo rigor e criterio da analise do hardware do equipamento. A analise rigorosa dos equipamentos e concentrada no funcionamento do hardware em si e nao esta associada aos sistemas de controle, que sao feitos por softwares de controle. Uma quantidade significativa de software critico e desenvolvida por pequenas empresas, principalmente na industria de dispositivos medicos. Esse trabalho teve como objetivo primario apresentar uma proposta de metodologia para organizar o processo de teste do software de controle dos EEM, bem como definir toda a documentacao necessaria para a gerencia desse processo de teste tomando como base a norma IEEE 829:2008. Essa metodologia, que prioriza a realizacao de testes sistematicos, podera ser empregada para a verificacao e validacao dos softwares de controle de qualquer tipo de EEM, e esta dividida em duas partes fundamentais: Processo de Teste e Geracao de Documentos. Essa metodologia foi aplicada em um monitor cardiaco hospitalar comercial a fim de valida-lo e, como isso, pode garantir que o equipamento atendeu os requisitos do fabricante e principalmente da norma ao qual ele esta sujeito, e dessa forma considerou o equipamento seguro para uso clinico do ponto de vista da seguranca do software. A obtencao de todo o conteudo necessario para o processo de teste foi feita atraves do manual de utilizacao do EEM, das especificacoes tecnicas apontadas pelo fabricante e das especificacoes definidas na norma especifica do EEM que estao sujeitos a certificacao compulsoria prevista na Resolucao no. 32 da ANVISA. Como resultado dessa pesquisa foi gerado um conjunto de documentos, baseados na IEEE 829:2008, que foram utilizados desde o planejamento dos testes ate o registro dos resultados. Esses documentos sao: 1) Plano de Teste, que e uma modelagem detalhada do fluxo de trabalho durante o processo de teste; 2) Especificacao do Projeto de Teste, que refina a abordagem apresentada no Plano de Teste e identifica as funcionalidades e caracteristicas que foram testadas pelo projeto e por seus testes associados; 3) Especificacao dos Casos de Teste, que definiu os casos de teste, incluindo dados de entrada, resultados esperados, acoes e condicoes gerais para a execucao do teste; 4)Especificacao do Procedimento de Teste, que especificou os passos para executar um conjunto de casos de teste; 5) Diario de Teste, apresentou os registros cronologicos dos detalhes relevantes relacionados a execucao dos testes; 6) Relatorio de Incidente de Teste, documentou os eventos que ocorreram durante a atividade de teste e que precisaram de uma analise posterior; e 7) Relatorio resumo de Teste, apresentou, de forma resumida, os resultados das atividades de teste associadas com uma ou mais especificacoes de projeto de teste e realizou as avaliacoes baseadas nesses resultados. Dessa forma, como objetivos secundarios, foram apresentados os processos e os agentes envolvidos na certificacao de EEM no Brasil e no mundo. Na literatura foram encontrados diversos problemas com os EEM devidos, principalmente, a erros encontrados em seu software de controle. A partir dessas observacoes foram apresentados os reguladores de EEM no Brasil e como e feito o processo de certificacao, comercializacao e vigilancia pos-venda destes produtos. Para apontar os problemas que sao encontrados e documentados referentes aos EEM foi apresentado o conceito de recall e tambem como esse processo ocorre no Brasil e no mundo. A partir desta problematica foram apresentadas as normas aplicadas ao desenvolvimento de software englobando desde o processo de qualidade ate o processo final de teste onde o software de fato sera validado a fim de garantir que novos problemas relacionados aos equipamentos nao voltem a ocorrer. Como resultado primario deste trabalho teve-se a geracao dos documentos que serviram como base para o processo de teste, desde seu planejamento ate a execucao e o registro das atividades de teste. Essa documentacao consistiu em um modelo macro que podera ser aplicado em qualquer EEM. A partir da documentacao proposta pode-se realizar sua aplicacao em um monitor cardiaco hospitalar para sua verificacao (estudo de caso). Os testes funcionais aplicados aos sistemas embarcados do monitor cardiaco puderam ser considerados eficazes em diversas condicoes de uso simuladas, normais e tambem criticas ou que poderiam apresentar algum risco aos usuarios dos equipamentos. Esse estudo resultou em uma importante contribuicao para a organizacao do processo de verificacao e validacao de software de controle de EEM. A aplicacao desta proposta no monitor cardiaco sob teste pode realizar sua verificacao e validacao do ponto de vista de qualidade do software de controle, uma vez que nao apresentou defeitos, apenas um tipo uma falha considerada leve o que qualifica tal monitor cardiaco como apto para utilizacao seguraAbstract: Today a great part of electromedical equipments (EME) have some kind of control performed by software. This control can be restrict to one or more subsystems of the equipment or yet be total. Since software became a key factor in the EME control it represents an intrinsic risk and must be analyzed with the same accuracy and criterion of the equipment's hardware analysis. The rigorous analysis of the equipments is concentrated in the functioning of the hardware itself and is not associated to the software control systems. A significant amount of critical software is developed by small enterprises mainly in the EME industry. This study had as main goal to present a methodology proposal to organize the process of EME control software test as well as to define all necessary documentation for the management of this test process using the standard IEEE 829:2008. As a secondary goal of this work, the processes and agents involved in the EME certification in Brazil and in the world were reported. Several EME malfunctioning problems especially due to mistakes found in their control software were found in literature. Brazilian EME regulators and how the process of certification, commercialization and post-market surveillance of the medical products are done, were also reported. To point the problems found and documented regarding EME, the concept of recall was presented and also how this process occurs in Brazil and in the world. The proposed methodology, which prioritizes the achievement of systematic tests, can be used for verification and validation of any kind of EME control software and was divided in two fundamental parts: test process and generation of documents. The methodology was applied to a commercial hospital heart monitor in order to validate it and therefore to guarantee that the equipment has complied with the manufacture's requirements and with the standard it is subjected to. This way the equipment can be considered safe for clinical use from the software's security point of view. Some characteristics data and technical specifications, necessary for the test process, were obtained through the EME user manual and pointed by the manufacturer and EME standard specification, which are subject to compulsory certification provided by the ANVISA Brazilian resolution number 32. As a result of this research a set of documents was produced, based on the IEEE 829:2008 standard and were used from the test planning until the results record. Those documents are: 1) Test plan - detailed modeling of workflow during the test process. 2) Specification of test project - refines the approach presented in the test plan and identifies the functionalities and characteristics tested by project and associated tests. 3) Specification of test cases - specified steps to execute a set of test cases. 5) Test board - presented the chronological records of relevant details related to test execution. 6) Test incident report - documents the events occurred during the test activity that needed later analysis and 7) Test summary report - resumes briefly the results of test activities associated to one or more test project specifications and performed evaluations based on these results. As a primary result of this work there was the production of documents that were the basis for the testing process, from planning to execution and recording of test activities. This documentation consisted of a macro model that can be applied to any EME and it was used to test a hospital heart monitor. The functional tests applied to the heart monitor embedded systems were considered effective in various simulated situations, normal and critical or that could represent a risk to users of the equipment. This study resulted in an important contribution to the organization of the process of verification and validation of EME control software. The implementation of the proposed methodology on the heart monitor test was able to perform verification and validation from the point of view of control software and it was considered safe to be used since only a light kind of failure was observedMestradoEngenharia BiomedicaMestre em Engenharia Elétrica e de Computaçã

The prion protein regulates glutamate-mediated Ca2+ entry and mitochondrial Ca2+ accumulation in neurons

The cellular prion protein (PrPC) whose conformational misfolding leads to the production of deadly prions, has a still-unclarified cellular function despite decades of intensive research. Following our recent finding that PrPC limits Ca2+ entry via store-operated Ca2+ channels in neurons, we investigated whether the protein could also control the activity of ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs). To this end, we compared local Ca2+ movements in primary cerebellar granule neurons and cortical neurons transduced with genetically encoded Ca2+ probes and expressing, or not expressing, PrPC. Our investigation demonstrated that PrPC downregulates Ca2+ entry through each specific agonist-stimulated iGluR and after stimulation by glutamate. We found that, although PrP-knockout (KO) mitochondria were displaced from the plasma membrane, glutamate addition resulted in a higher mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake in PrP-KO neurons than in their PrPC-expressing counterpart. This was because the increased Ca2+ entry through iGluRs in PrP-KO neurons led to a parallel increase in Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release via ryanodine receptor channels. These data thus suggest that PrPC takes part in the cell apparatus controlling Ca2+ homeostasis, and that PrPC is involved in protecting neurons from toxic Ca2+ overloads

Local chiral potentials and the structure of light nuclei

We present fully local versions of the minimally non-local nucleon-nucleon potentials constructed in a previous paper [M.\ Piarulli {\it et al.}, Phys.\ Rev.\ C {\bf 91}, 024003 (2015)], and use them in hypersperical-harmonics and quantum Monte Carlo calculations of ground and excited states of $^3$H, $^3$He, $^4$He, $^6$He, and $^6$Li nuclei. The long-range part of these local potentials includes one- and two-pion exchange contributions without and with $\Delta$-isobars in the intermediate states up to order $Q^3$ ($Q$ denotes generically the low momentum scale) in the chiral expansion, while the short-range part consists of contact interactions up to order $Q^4$. The low-energy constants multiplying these contact interactions are fitted to the 2013 Granada database in two different ranges of laboratory energies, either 0--125 MeV or 0--200 MeV, and to the deuteron binding energy and $nn$ singlet scattering length. Fits to these data are performed for three models characterized by long- and short-range cutoffs, $R_{\rm L}$ and $R_{\rm S}$ respectively, ranging from $(R_{\rm L},R_{\rm S})=(1.2,0.8)$ fm down to $(0.8,0.6)$ fm. The long-range (short-range) cutoff regularizes the one- and two-pion exchange (contact) part of the potential.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figure

Hodgkin's lymphoma: post- autologous transplantation consolidation therapy

A first-line chemotherapy program based on the ABVD regimen is currently considered the golden standard by most hematologists, being able to achieve a cure without any need of subsequent therapies in >70% of patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL). To increase this percentage, efforts in recent decades focused on the development of new therapeutic strategies. A first major effort was the introduction of the BEACOPP chemotherapy regimen, which is able to increase the response rate and to reduce the need of salvage therapies. However, this result did not demonstrate an advantage in terms of overall survival compared to ABVD, mainly due to an excess of non lymphoma-related events in the follow-up phase. Here we describe three clinical cases of young HL patients who had relapsed/refractory disease after the induction chemotherapy. These three clinical cases provide practical and real world evidence in favor of the use of BV in monotherapy as consolidation treatment after autologous stem cells transplantation in patients with relapsed/refractory HL