Organizational determinants of IT adoption in the pharmaceutical distribution sector

The aim of this paper is to propose new organizational factors that might explain the differences in the extent and the speed of IT adoption. With this in mind, we carried out an analysis of 16 cases in the pharmaceutical distribution sector in Spain. The results indicate that there are certain intangible assets that favour the introduction and development of IT. Among these are a frank and fluid communication between departments and members of the organization, low levels of conflict, the explicit support of top management towards IT adoption and learning and creative skills of IT-staff. In addition to these factors, we found others that we propose as catalysts of IT adoption. Among these we might mention the special relationship between the member-clients and the company in the case of cooperative firms.     

Characterization of limit cycles for self-regulating and integral processes with PI control and send-on-delta sampling

This work is focused on the study of limit cycles that appear in a control scheme which is based on the use of a PI controller with an event-based send-on-delta sampling (SOD). The processes investigated are integrator processes plus time delay (IPTD) and first and second order processes plus time delay, which are of interest because they are frequently used to model many industrial processes. The SOD sampling is characterized as a non-linearity of n levels with hysteresis. An algorithm to calculate the limit cycles properties is proposed, and then the results obtained in simulations are compared with experiments performed on a real plant, a distributed solar collector field at the Solar Platform of Almería (PSA, Spain).     

Daily doses of light in relation to the growth of Scenedesmus obliquus in diluted three‐phase olive mill wastewater

BACKGROUND: The use of olive‐oil mill wastewater (OMW) from a three‐phase centrifugation process used in the olive‐oil industry, has been studied in relation to the production of the microalga Scenedesmus obliquus CCAP 276/3A. The chemical characteristics of OMW indicated nitrogen deficiency. RESULTS: S. obliquus is able to assimilate nutrients present in a culture medium (water‐OMW 5%) and grow at its maximum specific growth rate of 0.026 h^?1, both under mixotrophic as well as heterotrophic conditions. The different daily doses of light (DDL) used, in the range 0–36 E m^?2 d^?1, determined light‐limited and light‐inhibited cultures. The light‐inhibited mixotrophic cultures bore characteristics similar to those of the heterotrophic cultures, and became more so when the dose of light received was higher. The low protein yield (258 mg g^?1) and high percentage of carbohydrates of the biomass (65.8%) confirmed a nutritional‐stress situation associated with nitrogen limitation. CONCLUSION: The similarity between the fatty‐acid composition of the heterotrophic and mixotrophic cultures strongly inhibited by light appeared to indicate the cancelling of the photosynthetic behaviour of the cells at high DDL values. The biomass generated can be used for biofuels. The maximum elimination of biological oxygen demand (BOD₅) per unit of biomass was achieved in the heterotrophic cultures. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

The use of activated charcoal in combination with other fining agents and its influence on the organoleptic properties of sherry wine

Fining experiments have been conducted on fino sherry wine from the Jerez-Xérès-Sherry region (southern Spain), in which the combined use of activated charcoal with proteinaceous fining agents (casein, potassium caseinate, albumin, and gelatin) has been studied. The effect of these fining agents on the polyphenolic content, the aromatic profile, and the resistance to browning of the treated wine has been determined. The polyphenolic content suffers significant decreases following the use of activated charcoal; these decreases are only increased slightly by the subsequent use of the other fining agents. The aromatic profile was not found to be altered by the clarification agents used. Despite the reduction in the polyphenolic content, the treated wines show a tendency to suffer browning similar to that observed in non-clarified wine.     

Instrumental technique evolution for olive oil sensory analysis

At present, two systems have been usually used to identify olive oil aroma: the official panel test, according to the European Union Regulation [1], and the gas chromatographic method and its improvements. However, both types of techniques have two principal disadvantages: They need a long time for analysis and cannot be applied on‐line. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the development of a new device, the so‐called “electronic nose”. The aim of this work is to perform both a review of these techniques used for olive oil sensory analysis and their advantages and disadvantages.     

Robust h-index

Scientometrics - The h-index is the most used measurement of impact for researchers. Sites such as Web of Science, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and Scopus leverage it to show and compare the...     

Cortical variations of the dimension of correlation in children with attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The syndrome of deficient attention and hyperactivity affects approximately 5% of children of school age. Clinically it is characterized by deficient attention, impulsiveness and excessive motor activity. Developments in nonlinear dynamic theory have made it possible to think of modelling cerebral activity as a dynamic system of chaotic type. One the most widely standardized measurements is the dimension of correlation (D2). In this paper we study the electroencephalographic traces of a control group of 9 healthy children and another group of 19 children with the syndrome of deficient attention, at rest and whilst carrying out a visuomotor task (Test of perception of differences). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The dimension of correlation was estimated for both groups. Statistical comparison was made between the cortical distributions of the D2 between both types of recordings and between both groups. RESULTS: The children with lack of attention showed a larger number of activated cortical areas than those of the control group when carrying out the same task. However, during the resting state there were no differences in the D2 between the control children and the children with deficient attention. The indicates that both groups have the same basal level of activation. CONCLUSION: The dimension of correlation is a method which permits the demonstration of an increase in neuronal activity in the stimulated areas, in this case in the occipital region.     

Determination of the complex permittivity of cherry,pulped, green,and roasted coffee using a planar dielectric platform and a coaxial probe between 0.3 and 6 GHz

The complex permittivity for four processing stages of coffee: coffee cherries, pulped coffee, green coffee, and roasted coffee was obtained and divided into two groups. The wet group is constituted by cherry and pulped coffee, and the dry group by green and roasted coffee. The wet group presented a dielectric constant between 64 and 43, and a loss factor between 34 and 12. The dry group has values oscillating between 1.55 and 1.1 for the dielectric constant, and 0.037 and 0.005 for the loss factor. The permittivity difference between the wet and dry groups suggests the dependence of the coffee permittivity on the water content, along with the presence of other polar compounds. A decaying response for the dielectric constant was seen, with a proportion of 30:1 from the wet to the dry group. The loss factor presents a convex response for the wet group and a constant response for the dry group with a factor of 500 to a 100:1 from the wet to the dry group. A set of 18 samples at every stage was used to estimate the moisture content by partial least squares. The Meyer and Schilz coefficient was used for these models, that resulted in prediction errors of 2.8% and 3.8% when compared to the stage mean moisture content for the wet group. The dry group resulted in errors of 21% and 89.7%. These results indicate that the complex permittivity of coffee is capable of estimating physicochemical variables as the moisture content of the beans at distinct processing stages.