10,483 research outputs found
A decision-making approach for investigating the potential effects of near sourcing on supply chain
Purpose - Near sourcing is starting to be regarded as a valid alternative to global sourcing in order to leverage supply chain (SC) responsiveness and economic efficiency. The present work proposes a decision-making approach developed in collaboration with a leading Italian retailer that was willing to turn the global store furniture procurement process into near sourcing. Design/methodology/approach - Action research is employed. The limitations of the traditional SC organisation and purchasing process of the company are first identified. On such basis, an inventory management model is applied to run spreadsheet estimates where different purchasing and SC management strategies are adopted to determine the solution providing the lowest cost performance. Finally, a risk analysis of the selected best SC arrangement is conducted and results are discussed. Findings - Switching from East Asian suppliers to continental vendors enables a SC reengineering that increases flexibility and responsiveness to demand uncertainty which, together with decreased transportation costs, assures economic viability, thus proving the benefits of near sourcing. Research limitations/implications - The decision-making framework provides a methodological roadmap to address the comparison between near and global sourcing policies and to calculate the savings of the former against the latter. The approach could include additional organisational aspects and cost categories impacting on near sourcing and could be adapted to investigate different products, services, and business sectors. Originality/value - The work provides SC researchers and practitioners with a structured approach for understanding what drives companies to adopt near sourcing and for quantitatively assessing its advantage
L'intercomprensione: da pratica sociale a oggetto della didattica
La prima parte del volume, frutto di riflessioni comuni di M. De Carlo e M. Anquetil (da attribuire a Anquetil a scopi accademici le pagine 53-68), introduce l'intercomprensione come \u201ccampo educativo\u201d (nel senso del concetto sociologico). Vengono riprese la categorie di R. Galisson per descrivere il campo dell'IC (livelli macro- e micro-istituzionali, oggetto e attori, discipline di riferimento) per un saggio introduttivo che sintetizza la problematica attuale dell'IC nel contesto italiano
Changes in protein expression in two cholangiocarcinoma cell lines undergoing formation of multicellular tumor spheroids In vitro
Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) is relevant in malignant growth and frequently
correlates with worsening disease progression due to its implications in metastases and re-
sistance to therapeutic interventions. Although EMT is known to occur in several types of
solid tumors, the information concerning tumors arising from the epithelia of the bile tract is
still limited. In order to approach the problem of EMT in cholangiocarcinoma, we decided to
investigate the changes in protein expression occurring in two cell lines under conditions
leading to growth as adherent monolayers or to formation of multicellular tumor spheroids
(MCTS), which are considered culture models that better mimic the growth characteristics
of
in-vivo
solid tumors. In our system, changes in phenotypes occur with only a decrease in
transmembrane E-cadherin and vimentin expression, minor changes in the transglutami-
nase protein/activity but with significant differences in the proteome profiles, with declining
and increasing expression in 6 and in 16 proteins identified by mass spectrometry. The aris-
ing protein patterns were analyzed based on canonical pathways and network analysis.
These results suggest that significant metabolic rearrangements occur during the conver-
sion of cholangiocarcinomas cells to the MCTS phenotype, which most likely affect the car-
bohydrate metabolism, protein folding, cytoskeletal activity, and tissue sensitivity to oxygen
Sustainable choice of the location of a biomass plant: an application in Tuscany
The management of complex systems often requires taking decisions that may affect the company's future. Making decisions is not easy and requires you to take serious responsibility. The company character appointed to this task, is the “decision-makers” who, within a job or project, must make a selection among several alternatives. To carry out this task, you must perform a process called "decision analysis". It can be aided by qualitative and quantitative tools, able to rationalize a
multifactorial choice and bring it to a judgment of performance parameters more easily comparable. In fact, if this problem is addressed considering only the economic aspects, other fundamental parameters will be neglected such as, for example, the environmental ones. Actually, bringing many different aspects to a simple economic performance, or anyway one-dimensional, proves to be a limiting and unsatisfactory approach. In addition, if we consider the concepts of sustainability, we should at least take into account
the three dimensions that describe it, namely the economic, environmental and social issues. Then, a strategy of decision making more complete that could integrate all the three aspects, becomes much more appropriate. In this context, the multi-criteria analysis are particularly suitable for this purpose. In this study we aim at investigating how one of the most popular multi-criteria methods, the Analytic Network Process (ANP) can be used to define the location of a cogeneration plant fuelled by biomass. The novelty of this study consists of having categorized and divided into homogeneous areas an entire region. In
addition, to evaluate the economic efficiency, as compared to other authoritative work on the subject, also the water content in the raw material was considered, influencing the amount of biomass consumed. The
results show that the ANP allows decisions making according to an overall view, considering a wide
variety of parameters and allows the decision makers to better represent the needs of the stakeholder
A Bayesian Networks Approach to Operational Risk
A system for Operational Risk management based on the computational paradigm
of Bayesian Networks is presented. The algorithm allows the construction of a
Bayesian Network targeted for each bank using only internal loss data, and
takes into account in a simple and realistic way the correlations among
different processes of the bank. The internal losses are averaged over a
variable time horizon, so that the correlations at different times are removed,
while the correlations at the same time are kept: the averaged losses are thus
suitable to perform the learning of the network topology and parameters. The
algorithm has been validated on synthetic time series. It should be stressed
that the practical implementation of the proposed algorithm has a small impact
on the organizational structure of a bank and requires an investment in human
resources limited to the computational area
Exact ground state for a class of matrix Hamiltonian models: quantum phase transition and universality in the thermodynamic limit
By using a recently proposed probabilistic approach, we determine the exact
ground state of a class of matrix Hamiltonian models characterized by the fact
that in the thermodynamic limit the multiplicities of the potential values
assumed by the system during its evolution are distributed according to a
multinomial probability density. The class includes i) the uniformly fully
connected models, namely a collection of states all connected with equal
hopping coefficients and in the presence of a potential operator with arbitrary
levels and degeneracies, and ii) the random potential systems, in which the
hopping operator is generic and arbitrary potential levels are assigned
randomly to the states with arbitrary probabilities. For this class of models
we find a universal thermodynamic limit characterized only by the levels of the
potential, rescaled by the ground-state energy of the system for zero
potential, and by the corresponding degeneracies (probabilities). If the
degeneracy (probability) of the lowest potential level tends to zero, the
ground state of the system undergoes a quantum phase transition between a
normal phase and a frozen phase with zero hopping energy. In the frozen phase
the ground state condensates into the subspace spanned by the states of the
system associated with the lowest potential level.Comment: 31 pages, 13 figure
Confocal laser scanning microscope, raman microscopy and western blotting to evaluate inflammatory response after myocardial infarction
Cardiac muscle necrosis is associated with inflammatory cascade that clears the infarct from dead
cells and matrix debris, and then replaces the damaged tissue with scar, through three overlapping phases: the
inflammatory phase, the proliferative phase and the maturation phase.
Western blotting, laser confocal microscopy, Raman microscopy are valuable tools for studying the inflammatory
response following myocardial infarction both humoral and cellular phase, allowing the identification and
semiquantitative analysis of proteins produced during the inflammatory cascade activation and the topographical distribution
and expression of proteins and cells involved in myocardial inflammation. Confocal laser scanning microscopy
(CLSM) is a relatively new technique for microscopic imaging, that allows greater resolution, optical sectioning of the
sample and three-dimensional reconstruction of the same sample. Western blotting used to detect the presence of a specific
protein with antibody-antigen interaction in the midst of a complex protein mixture extracted from cells, produced
semi-quantitative data quite easy to interpret. Confocal Raman microscopy combines the three-dimensional optical resolution
of confocal microscopy and the sensitivity to molecular vibrations, which characterizes Raman spectroscopy.
The combined use of western blotting and confocal microscope allows detecting the presence of proteins in the sample
and trying to observe the exact location within the tissue, or the topographical distribution of the same. Once demonstrated
the presence of proteins (cytokines, chemokines, etc.) is important to know the topographical distribution, obtaining in this
way additional information regarding the extension of the inflammatory process in function of the time stayed from the
time of myocardial infarction. These methods may be useful to study and define the expression of a wide range of inflammatory
mediators at several different timepoints providing a more detailed analysis of the time course of the infarct
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Recommendations for coronavirus infection in rheumatic diseases treated with biologic therapy.
The Coronavirus-associated disease, that was first identified in 2019 in China (CoViD-19), is a pandemic caused by a bat-derived beta-coronavirus, named SARS-CoV2. It shares homology with SARS and MERS-CoV, responsible for past outbreaks in China and in Middle East. SARS-CoV2 spread from China where the first infections were described in December 2019 and is responsible for the respiratory symptoms that can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome. A cytokine storm has been shown in patients who develop fatal complications, as observed in past coronavirus infections. The management includes ventilatory support and broad-spectrum antiviral drugs, empirically utilized, as a targeted therapy and vaccines have not been developed. Based upon our limited knowledge on the pathogenesis of CoViD-19, a potential role of some anti-rheumatic drugs may be hypothesized, acting as direct antivirals or targeting host immune response. Antimalarial drugs, commonly used in rheumatology, may alter the lysosomal proteases that mediates the viral entry into the cell and have demonstrated efficacy in improving the infection. Anti-IL-1 and anti-IL-6 may interfere with the cytokine storm in severe cases and use of tocilizumab has shown good outcomes in a small cohort. Baricitinib has both antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. Checkpoints inhibitors such as anti-CD200 and anti-PD1 could have a role in the treatment of CoViD-19. Rheumatic disease patients taking immunosuppressive drugs should be recommended to maintain the chronic therapy, prevent infection by avoiding social contacts and pausing immunosuppressants in case of infection. National and international registries are being created to collect data on rheumatic patients with CoViD-19
Analytical probabilistic approach to the ground state of lattice quantum systems: exact results in terms of a cumulant expansion
We present a large deviation analysis of a recently proposed probabilistic
approach to the study of the ground-state properties of lattice quantum
systems. The ground-state energy, as well as the correlation functions in the
ground state, are exactly determined as a series expansion in the cumulants of
the multiplicities of the potential and hopping energies assumed by the system
during its long-time evolution. Once these cumulants are known, even at a
finite order, our approach provides the ground state analytically as a function
of the Hamiltonian parameters. A scenario of possible applications of this
analyticity property is discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figure
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