Developing modular product family using GeMoCURE within an SME

Companies adopt the strategy of producing variety of products to be competitive and responsive to market. Product variation is becoming an important factor in companies' ability to accurately meet customer requirements. Ever increasing consumer options mean that customers have more choices than ever before which put commercial pressures on companies to continue to diversify. This can be a particular problem within Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who do not always have the level of resources to meet these requirements. As such, methods are required that provide means for companies to be able to produce a wide range of products at the lowest cost and shortest time. This paper details a new modular product design methodology that provides a focus on developing modular product families. The methodology's function is described and a case study detailed of how it was used within an SME to define the company's product portfolio and create a new Generic Product Function Structure from which a new family of product variants can be developed. The methodology lends itself to modular re-use which has the potential to support rapid development and configuration of product variants

High visibility two photon interference of frequency time entangled photons generated in a quasi phase matched AlGaAs waveguide

We demonstrate experimentally the frequency time entanglement of photon pairs produced in a CW pumped quasi phased matched AlGaAs superlattice waveguide. A visibility of 96.0+-0.7% without background subtraction has been achieved, which corresponds the violation of Bell inequality by 52 standard deviations

Viability of the Antitrust Per Se Illegality Rule: Schwinn Down, How Many to Go?

The impact of Sylvania on various antitrust restraints is first examined in a descriptive fashion. Then, a principled approach for dealing generally with this type of econo-legal problem is suggested

An Empirical Evaluation of Statistical Matching Methodologies

Using known data, the methodologies available for microdata file merging are compared. Results indicate that various techniques work or do not work in specific circumstances. An optimal-constrined merge model with an absolute difference distance function provide the best results

Listening and learning : the reciprocal relationship between worker and client

The relationship between worker and client has for the best part of 100 years been the mainstay of probation, and yet has recently been eroded by an increased emphasis on punishment, blame and managerialism. The views of offenders are in direct contradiction to these developments within the criminal justice system and this article argues that only by taking account of the views of those at the 'coal face' will criminologists, policy makers and practitioners be able to effect real change in crime rates. The article thus focuses on the views of a sample of previously persistent offenders in Scotland about offending, desistance and how the system can help them. It explores not only their need for friendship and support in youth but also the close association between relationships and the likelihood of offending. It also demonstrates the views of offenders themselves about the importance of the working relationship with supervising officers in helping them desist from crime. The article concludes that the most effective way of reducing offending is to re-engage with the message of the Probation Act of 100 years ago, namely, to 'advise, assist and befriend' offenders rather than to 'confront, challenge and change' offending behaviour

Patient preference for the management of mildly abnormal Papanicolau smears

The article provides information on a study that investigated management preference and desire for decision-making involvement in women who have received a first mildly abnormal Papanicolaou smear. The majority of women in this highly educated sample preferred active management of their mildly abnormal Pap smears, although a substantial minority either opted for the surveillance strategy or reported no strong preference. Furthermore, management preference in this sample was not related to knowledge but rather to level of state anxiety. This indicates that these decisions may be guided more by emotions than by facts. Research has shown repeatedly that abnormal Pap smears are associated with a significant amount of anxiety. It could be that fear of invasive carcinoma weighs in heavily on the side of the active management strategy, despite knowledge of its being a low probability event. As gynecologists continue to evaluate the comparative medical efficacy of different strategies in the management of low-grade cervical abnormalities. It seems important that patient preference and psychosocial factors affecting preference be integrated into the evaluation process and incorporated into clinical practice

Characterization of a second open reading frame in genome segment 10 of bluetongue virus

Viruses have often evolved overlapping reading frames in order to maximise their coding capacity. Until recently, the segmented double-stranded (ds) RNA genome of viruses of the Orbivirus genus was thought to be monocistronic but the identification of the bluetongue virus (BTV) NS4 protein changed this assumption. A small open reading frame (ORF) in segment 10, overlapping the NS3 ORF in the +1 position that is maintained in more than 300 strains of the 26 different BTV serotypes and in more of 200 strains of the phylogenetically related African horse sickness (AHSV). In BTV, this ORF (named S10-ORF2 in this study) encodes a putative protein of 50-59 amino acid residues in length and appears to be under a strong positive selection. HA- or GFP-tagged versions of S10-ORF2 expressed from transfected plasmids localised within the nucleoli of transfected cells unless a putative nucleolar localisation signal was mutated S10-ORF2 inhibited gene expression, but not RNA translation, in transient transfection reporter assays. In both mammalian and insect cells, BTV S10-ORF2 deletion mutants (BTV8ΔS10-ORF2) displayed similar replication kinetics to wild type virus. In vivo, S10-ORF2 deletion mutants were pathogenic in mouse models of disease. Although further evidence is required for S10-ORF2 expression during infection, the data presented provide an initial characterisation of this open reading frame