The influence of different centralised pre-packaging systems on the shelf-life of fresh pork

The influence of different centralised pre-packaging systems (PVC, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), 25% CO(2) and 75% O(2), vacuum skin packaging (VSP) and the mother bag concept, 100% CO(2)) on the shelf-life (0, 7, 14 and 21 days at 0°C) of fresh pork was determined using microbiological, colour, odour and acceptability characteristics. All the packaging treatments were equally efficient for the first 4 days of retail display. In the extended shelf-life study (7, 14 and 21 days) the mother bag centralised packaging system gave the most promising shelf-life results (21 days) and was also judged superior in terms of odour. Modified atmosphere packaging (14 days) and VSP (7 days) may be considered as other possible options.     

Operator stress and monitoring practices

This study attempted to identify the major sources of work-related stress among telephone operators, with special emphasis on computer monitoring and telephone surveillance. A cross-sectional random sample of over 700 telephone operators participated in a questionnaire survey (response rate = 88%). The survey included items designed to measure perceived stress, management practices, specific job stressors and monitoring preferences. Call-time pressure items were most strongly linked to job stress by operators, with 70% reporting that difficulty in serving a customer well and still keeping call-time down contributed to their feelings of stress to a large or very large extent. About 55% of operators reported that telephone monitoring contributed to their feelings of job stress. If given the opportunity, 44% of operators stated they would prefer not to be monitored by telephone at all, while 23% stated they would prefer some monitoring; 33% had no preference. The setting of inappropriate individual-call-time objectives, which may be consistently unachievable for some operators and which create conflict between management demands for quantity and quality and also between workers values concerning quality and productivity demands, appears to be the most stress-inducing aspect of the job. In terms of telephone surveillance, the issues of timeliness and specificity of feedback appear to be less important than call-time pressure.     

Deciding bisimilarity is<Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis>-complete

In finite labelled transition systems the problems of deciding strong bisimilarity, observation equivalence and observation congruence areP-complete under many—oneNC-reducibility. As a consequence, algorithms for automated analysis of finite state systems based on bisimulation seem to be inherently sequential in the following sense: the design of anNC algorithm to solve any of these problems will require an algorithmic breakthrough, which is exceedingly hard to achieve.     

Gaussian,Lobatto and Radau positive quadrature rules with a prescribed abscissa

For a given $\theta \in (a,b)$ , we investigate the question whether there exists a positive quadrature formula with maximal degree of precision which has the prescribed abscissa $\theta $ plus possibly $a$ and/or $b$ , the endpoints of the interval of integration. This study relies on recent results on the location of roots of quasi-orthogonal polynomials. The above positive quadrature formulae are useful in studying problems in one-sided polynomial $L_1$ approximation.     

The effect of pre-warming on performance during simulated firefighting exercise

This study examined the effect of active pre-warming on speed and quality of performance during simulated firefighting exercise. Twelve male firefighters performed two trials in counterbalanced order. They were either pre-warmed by 20-min cycling at 1.5 Watt kg⁻¹ body mass (WARM) or remained thermoneutral (CON) prior to a simulated firefighting activity. After the pre-warming, gastrointestinal temperature (P < 0.001), skin temperature (P = 0.002), and heart rate (P < 0.001) were higher in WARM than in CON. During the firefighting activity, rating of perceived exertion, thermal sensation and discomfort were higher for WARM than for CON. Finish time of the firefighting activity was similar, but the last task of the activity was completed slower in WARM than in CON (P = 0.04). In WARM, self-reported performance quality was lower than in CON (P = 0.04). It is concluded that pre-warming reduces the speed during the last part of simulated firefighting activity and reduces self-reported quality of performance.     

Event-driven,pattern-based methodology for cost-effective development of standardized personal health devices

Experiences applying standards in personal health devices (PHDs) show an inherent trade-off between interoperability and costs (in terms of processing load and development time). Therefore, reducing hardware and software costs as well as time-to-market is crucial for standards adoption. The ISO/IEEE11073 PHD family of standards (also referred to as X73PHD) provides interoperable communication between PHDs and aggregators. Nevertheless, the responsibility of achieving inexpensive implementations of X73PHD in limited resource microcontrollers falls directly on the developer. Hence, the authors previously presented a methodology based on patterns to implement X73-compliant PHDs into devices with low-voltage low-power constraints. That version was based on multitasking, which required additional features and resources. This paper therefore presents an event-driven evolution of the patterns-based methodology for cost-effective development of standardized PHDs. The results of comparing between the two versions showed that the mean values of decrease in memory consumption and cycles of latency are 11.59% and 45.95%, respectively. In addition, several enhancements in terms of cost-effectiveness and development time can be derived from the new version of the methodology. Therefore, the new approach could help in producing cost-effective X73-compliant PHDs, which in turn could foster the adoption of standards.     

gHRV: Heart rate variability analysis made easy

In this paper, the gHRV software tool is presented. It is a simple, free and portable tool developed in python for analysing heart rate variability. It includes a graphical user interface and it can import files in multiple formats, analyse time intervals in the signal, test statistical significance and export the results.     

Development and implementation of clinical guidelines: An artificial intelligence perspective

Clinical practice guidelines in paper format are still the preferred form of delivery of medical knowledge and recommendations to healthcare professionals. Their current support and development process have well identified limitations to which the healthcare community has been continuously searching solutions. Artificial intelligence may create the conditions and provide the tools to address many, if not all, of these limitations.. This paper presents a comprehensive and up to date review of computer-interpretable guideline approaches, namely Arden Syntax, GLIF, PROforma, Asbru, GLARE and SAGE. It also provides an assessment of how well these approaches respond to the challenges posed by paper-based guidelines and addresses topics of Artificial intelligence that could provide a solution to the shortcomings of clinical guidelines. Among the topics addressed by this paper are expert systems, case-based reasoning, medical ontologies and reasoning under uncertainty, with a special focus on methodologies for assessing quality of information when managing incomplete information. Finally, an analysis is made of the fundamental requirements of a guideline model and the importance that standard terminologies and models for clinical data have in the semantic and syntactic interoperability between a guideline execution engine and the software tools used in clinical settings. It is also proposed a line of research that includes the development of an ontology for clinical practice guidelines and a decision model for a guideline-based expert system that manages non-compliance with clinical guidelines and uncertainty.     

Blocking the Routes to Triviality with Depth Relevance

In Rogerson and Restall’s (J Philos Log 36, 2006, p. 435), the “class of implication formulas known to trivialize (NC)” (NC abbreviates “naïve comprehension”) is recorded. The aim of this paper is to show how to invalidate any member in this class by using “weak relevant model structures”. Weak relevant model structures verify deep relevant logics only.