Involving suppliers in product development in the United States andJapan: evidence for set-based concurrent engineering

Concurrent engineering (CE) involves a widely recognized revolution in the social organization of product development and a corresponding revolution in the underlying paradigm of design. We distinguish between two paradigms-point-based design and set-based design-and argue that effective, truly concurrent design requires shifting to a paradigm where design team members reason and communicate about sets of designs which we call “set-based concurrent engineering”. A survey of 92 Japanese and 119 US automotive parts suppliers who design their own products sought to quantify the pervasiveness and correlates of “set-based approaches”. The survey evidence indicates that set-based design communication is more prevalent among Japanese than among US parts suppliers, and is correlated with certain product development characteristics including years of experience with early involvement of suppliers in design, the degree of product-process design overlap, the degree to which subsystems are interdependent, and the use of quality function deployment (QFD)     

Compound heterozygous deletion of the PROP-1 gene in children with combined pituitary hormone deficiency

Mutations in the prophet of Pit-1 gene (PROP1) have been shown to be responsible for combined pituitary hormone deficiency (CPHD) with deficiencies of growth hormone (GH), Prolactin (Prl), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and gonadotropins. We previously reported that homozygosity for a 2bp deletion in exon 2 (296delGA) accounted for CPHD in three patients from two Russian families. Here we report a second mutational hot spot in exon 2. This 2bp 149delGA deletion results in a frame shift that leads to the same serine to stop codon change at codon 109 (S109X). The predicted proteins are each truncated at residue 108 but diverge from the wild type sequence at different points in the homeodomain. Compound heterozygosity for the two mutations (149delGA/296delGA) was detected in 5 of 14 CPHD children from 4 families (36%). This provides the first evidence of heterozygosity for two common deletions as a cause of CPHD in Russian children.     

Effect of acute dietary alteration upon intestinal lipid synthesis

The specific activities of three enzymes engaged in complex lipid synthesis, diglyceride acyltransferase, cholinephosphotransferase, and lysolecithin acyltransferase were studied in intestinal mucosa of hamsters fed either saline, hydrolyzed casein, or corn oil for 9 1/2 hr. In the most proximal intestine, saline feeding was associated with a reduced specific activity in villous tips with all three enzymes studied when compared with the two caloric supplemented groups. In the most distal intestine, oil feeding increased the activity of lysolecithin acyltransferase and choline phosphotransferase twofold as compared to casein fed hamsters; diglyceride acyltransferase was increased one- and one-half-fold. The response of lysolecithin acyltransferase and diglyceride acyltransferase to fat feeding was incomplete when compared to hamsters fed a fat supplemented diet for 7 days, suggesting that their pattern of response to dietary substrate was similar to the disaccharidases. By contrast, the response of cholinephosphotransferase to fat feeding was complete at 24 hr, suggesting that it responds in a manner similar to the glycolytic enzymes.     

An intensive regimen of pelotherapy in pulmonology

The authors show that intensification of peloid therapy, i.e. more frequent procedures, in patients with pulmonary diseases imposes additional load on the regulatory systems: vegetative, cardiovascular, immune. Moderate balneological reactions become more frequent, therapeutic results worsen. How to correct the above negative effects is proposed.     

Materials on the morphology departments of the Orenburg Medical Academy

An analysis of the relation among the quantity of focuses of Aedes aegypti, the rains and the temperatures in rainy and dry periods from 1982 to 1992 in 10 de Octubre municipe, at City of Havana, was carried out. No correlation was found between the number of focuses and the rains occurred in both seasons, and it was just the same between the number of focuses and temperatures. Thus, emphasis is made in the need for a strong surveillance along all year.