Personnel Training System As A Management Component Of A Socially Responsible Organisation

The paper describes some practical aspects to justify the need for training and motivating staff to achieve the set results of a small business enterprise. The paper considers a commercial enterprise with the headcount up to 40 people. For such enterprises, commercial success, ensuring the well-being of the company employees, is closely related to the quality of their work. To achieve the required level of the personnel performance, a system of personnel training has been developed. The system is related to the organisation's goals on the basis of the balanced scorecard (BSC) system methodology. Methods of statistical data processing were used to study the current state of affairs and identify the factors that have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of the organisation. To identify some possible problems in the main process of the organisation, the methodology of risk analysis was used. As a result of the work, staff activity standards have been developed, including the criteria for the staff performance assessment. The head of the organisation has been given an opportunity to manage on the basis of the actual data on the main process effectiveness

Experiences from treating seven adult 5q spinal muscular atrophy patients with Nusinersen

Background: The antisense oligonucleotide Nusinersen recently became the first approved drug against spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). It was approved for all ages, albeit the clinical trials were conducted exclusively on children. Hence, clinical data on adults being treated with Nusinersen is scarce. In this case series, we report on drug application, organizational demands, and preliminary effects during the first 10 months of treatment with Nusinersen in seven adult patients. Methods: All patients received intrathecal injections with Nusinersen. In cases with severe spinal deformities, we performed computed tomography (CT)-guided applications. We conducted a total of 40 administrations of Nusinersen. We evaluated the patients with motor, pulmonary, and laboratory assessments, and tracked patient-reported outcome. Results: Intrathecal administration of Nusinersen was successful in most patients, even though access to the lumbar intrathecal space in adults with SMA is often challenging. No severe adverse events occurred. Six of the seven patients reported stabilization of motor function or reduction in symptom severity. The changes in the assessed scores did not reach a significant level within this short time period. Conclusions: Treating adult SMA patients with Nusinersen is feasible and most patients consider it beneficial. It demands a complex organizational and interdisciplinary effort. Due to the slowly decreasing motor functions in adult SMA patients, long observation phases for this recently approved treatment are needed to allow conclusions about effectiveness of Nusinersen in adults

Eye fluke infection changes diet composition in juvenile European perch (Perca fluviatilis)

Intraspecific diet specialization, usually driven by resource availability, competition and predation, is common in natural populations. However, the role of parasites on diet specialization of their hosts has rarely been studied. Eye flukes can impair vision ability of their hosts and have been associated with alterations of fish feeding behavior. Here it was assessed whether European perch (Perca fluviatilis) alter their diet composition as a consequence of infection with eye flukes. Young-of-the-year (YOY) perch from temperate Lake Müggelsee (Berlin, Germany) were sampled in two years, eye flukes counted and fish diet was evaluated using both stomach content and stable isotope analyses. Perch diet was dominated by zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrates. Both methods indicated that with increasing eye fluke infection intensity fish had a more selective diet, feeding mainly on the benthic macroinvertebrate Dikerogammarus villosus, while less intensively infected fish appeared to be generalist feeders showing no preference for any particular prey type. Our results show that infection with eye flukes can indirectly affect interaction of the host with lower trophic levels by altering the diet composition and highlight the underestimated role of parasites in food web studies.Leibniz-AssociationPeer Reviewe

Heavy Meson Production at COSY - 11

The COSY-11 collaboration has measured the total cross section for the pp --> pp eta-prime and pp --> pp eta reactions in the excess energy range from Q = 1.5 MeV to Q = 23.6 MeV and from Q = 0.5 MeV to Q = 5.4 MeV, respectively. Measurements have been performed with the total luminosity of 73 nb^(-1) for the pp --> pp eta reaction and 1360 nb^(-1) for the pp --> pp eta-prime one. Recent results are presented and discussed.Comment: Invited talk at 4th International Conference on Physics at Storage Rings (STORI 99), Bloomington, Indiana, USA, September 12-16, 199

Near-Threshold eta Meson Production in Proton-Proton Collisions

The production of eta mesons has been measured in the proton-proton interaction close to the reaction threshold using the COSY-11 internal facility at the cooler synchrotron COSY. Total cross sections were determined for eight different excess energies in the range from 0.5 MeV to 5.4 MeV. The energy dependence of the total cross section is well described by the available phase-space volume weighted by FSI factors for the proton-proton and proton-eta pairs.Comment: 9 pages, 1 table, 5 figure

Saturation of the filament density of ultrashort intense laser pulses in air

We experimentally and numerically characterize multiple filamentation of laser pulses with incident intensities of a few TW/cm2. Propagating 100TW laser pulses over 42m in air, we observe a new propagation regime where the filament density saturates. As also evidenced by numerical simulations in the same intensity range, the total number of filaments is governed by geometric constraints and mutual interactions among filaments rather than by the available power in the bea

Total Cross Section of the Reaction pp \to pK^+\Lambda Close to Threshold

The energy dependence of the total cross section for the pp \to pK^+\Lambda reaction was measured in the threshold region covering the excess energy range up to 7MeV. Existing model calculations describe the slope of the measured cross sections well, but are too low by a factor of two to three in rate. The data were used for a precise determination of the beam momentum of the COSY-synchrotron.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure