Citizens and Professionals Reconsider the Neighborhood

A plea for greater variety ran through six discussions between citizens and professionals who met to consider what neighborhoods should be like. Citizens expressed dissatisfaction with the usual suburban development and with the typical redevelopment project in the center of the city. They favored greater social heterogeneity and thought that greater variety would produce a better esthetic effect. Professionals demonstrated that their fields can provide knowledge to guide planners and developers in creating better neighborhoods. They showed that design, as well as providing esthetic satisfaction, affects people in many ways.     

A proposal for a structured approach for cross-company teamwork: a case study of involving the customer in service innovation

This paper outlines the results of a project aiming to develop and apply methods for service co-creation with customers, focusing on the early phases of service development. The project is collaboration between a manufacturing firm in the automotive industry, one of their B2B-customers (a transportation firm), as well as a university, all in Sweden. The research team selected and developed methods and work practices for problem analysis, idea generation, development and evaluation of services. Thus doing, methodological influence was taken from the area of engineering design. The proposed approaches were applied in a service development experiment mainly based on workshops. The experiment was followed up by an analysis of the resulting output, an interview series, and an evaluation by peers in focus groups. The goal of this article is to answer the following research questions: (1) What is the industrial applicability of co-creating services using a structured approach, e.g. what are the benefits and challenges? (2) What do the different actors contribute with using this approach, and what possible factors influence the nature and quality of the actors’ contributions? (3) Based on the answers to the questions above, what aspects should be considered to support situated planning and execution of future service co-creation projects? A central conclusion is that a structured approach is industrially applicable, but it is also evident that there is no completely universal recipe for service innovation. Addressing these insights, the paper also contributes with guidelines to support the situation-adapted set-up of future service co-creation projects.     

Effect of local standards on the implementation of national guidelines for asthma: primary care agreement with national asthma guidelines

In vivo electrophysiological assays in anesthetized rats have been used to compare the effects of the 5HT1B/1D receptor agonist, naratriptan, on central trigeminal nociceptive processing from dural and cutaneous inputs with its effects on nociceptive processing in the spinal cord. Naratriptan inhibited responses of single trigeminal neurons, to noxious electrical and mechanical stimulation of the dura and face, dose dependently by a maximum of 67+/-3% and 70+/-18%, respectively, at 3 mg kg(-1) i.v. In contrast, naratriptan did not affect spinal dorsal horn neuronal responses to noxious mechanical stimulation of the hind-paw. These findings suggest that 5HT1B/1D receptors have differential effects on nociceptive processing in the trigeminal versus spinal dorsal horns and provide a potential explanation for the lack of general analgesic effects of brain penetrant 5HT(1B/1D) agonist antimigraine drugs.     

AnyBoard: an FPGA-based, reconfigurable system

AnyBoard, a low-cost, field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based, reconfigurable rapid-prototyping system is described. The system hardware organization and software tools that help users automatically map designs to the FPGAs and manage the design process are discussed. The implementation of a pattern generator design is presented to illustrate the system's effectiveness     

Phytosanitary Applications of Irradiation

Abstract: Phytosanitary treatments are used to disinfest agricultural commodities of quarantine pests so that the commodities can be shipped out of quarantined areas. Ionizing irradiation is a promising phytosanitary treatment that is increasing in use worldwide. Almost 19000 metric tons of sweet potatoes and several fruits plus a small amount of curry leaf are irradiated each year in 6 countries, including the United States, to control a number of plant quarantine pests. Advantages over other treatments include tolerance by most fresh commodities, ability to treat in the final packaging and in pallet loads, and absence of pesticide residues. Disadvantages include lack of acceptance by the organic food industries and logistical bottlenecks resulting from current limited availability of the technology. A regulatory disadvantage is lack of an independent verification of treatment efficacy because pests may be found alive during commodity inspection, although they will not complete development or reproduce. For phytosanitary treatments besides irradiation, the pests die shortly after the treatment is concluded. This disadvantage does not hamper its use by industry, but rather makes the treatment more difficult to develop and regulate. Challenges to increase the use of phytosanitary irradiation (PI) are cost, because commercial use has not yet reached an optimum economy of scale, lack of facilities, because of their cost and current inability to feasibly locate them in packing facilities, lack of approved treatments for some quarantine pests, and concern about the process by key decision makers, such as packers, shippers, and retailers. Methods for overcoming these challenges are discussed.     

Palladium(II)‐Catalyzed Oxidation of Alcohols with Air as Reoxidant

Oxidation of primary and secondary aliphatic and secondary benzylic alcohols into their corresponding aldehydes and ketones was achieved in good yields with palladium catalysts using air as the reoxidant of palladium. The use of palladacycle 1 resulted in higher yields and a faster reaction than the use of Pd(OAc)₂ as the palladium source.     

Determination of ethane and pentane in free oxygen radical-induced lipid peroxidation

It has been proposed that ethane and pentane reflect free oxygen radical-induced lipid peroxidation. However, methodological difficulties limit the use of these gases for assessment of free oxygen radical activity. In the present report we describe an improved method for the accurate analysis of picomole quantities (≥1 pmol) of ethane and pentane. They are first quantitatively trapped into an adsorbent and then heat-desorbed directly into a capillary column for gas chromatographic quantitation. During oxidation of linolenic (n−3) and linoleic (n−6) acid, ethane and pentane were formed, respectively. Nonstimulated granulocytes formed pentane. Upon addition of phorbol 13-myristate 12-acetate, the generation of pentane was increased by 540%. Addition of superoxide dismutase plus catalase inhibited lipid peroxidation in both a cell-free system and in isolated cells. The present method is useful in the evaluation of free oxygen radical induced damage.     

Temporal strategy and performance during a fatiguing short-cycle repetitive task

This study investigated temporal changes in movement strategy and performance during fatiguing short-cycle work. Eighteen participants performed six 7-min work blocks with repetitive reaching movements at 0.5 Hz, each followed by a 5.5-min rest break for a total duration of 1 h. Electromyography (EMG) was collected continuously from the upper trapezius muscle, the temporal movement strategy and timing errors were obtained on a cycle-to-cycle basis, and perceived fatigue was rated before and after each work block. Clear signs of fatigue according to subjective ratings and EMG manifestations developed within each work block, as well as during the entire hour. For most participants, timing errors gradually increased, as did the waiting time at the near target. Changes in temporal movement strategy were negatively correlated with changes in the level and variability of EMG, suggesting that an adaptive temporal strategy offset the development of unstable motor solutions in this fatiguing, short-cycle work. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: Sustained performance of operators is essential to maintain competitiveness. In this study of repetitive work, participants gradually changed their temporal movement strategy, for possibly alleviating the effects of fatigue. This suggests that in order to effectively counteract fatigue and sustain performance, industrial production should allow extensive spatial and temporal flexibility.