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The methods of multi-criteria decision analysis are widely used for problems of selecting the best solution or ordering their sets. In the vast majority of cases, solving multi-criteria decision-making problems focuses on finding solutions for a given set of alternatives. When, for one or more decisional variants, the values of their attributes change, or a new alternative for assessment appears, the problem occurs. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on identifying the full decision-making model in the issue related to the study case of production line optimization. In this work, the Characteristic Objects METhod (COMET) has been applied. In effect, it identifies the full decision-making model. The decision problem has been identified, taking into account six decision criteria, and its operation has been used in organizing four decision alternatives.

The problem of optimization assembly lines for rarely repeatable products with low volumes will be addressed in this paper. In this kind of production each product should be treated as a project with different cycle time on each station. Balance of assembly lines processing separate projects is impacted by uncertainty, assembly methods are not fully automated. Daily operations in this kind of activity needed an effective and fast method to support decision making by assembly line managers and production planners. For this purpose Analytical Hierarchy Method (AHP) and TOPSIS methods are used. The empirical study presents four possible optimization configurations for comparison and evaluation using the AHP and TOPSIS methods.

VERTEX 2021 - 30th International Workshop on Vertex Detectors. September 27th–30th, 2021, Online from Oxford University, UK; International audience; Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (DMAPS) are monolithic pixel detectors with high-resistivity substrates designed for use in high-rate and high-radiation environments. They are produced in commercial CMOS processes, resulting in relatively low production costs and short turnaround times, and offer a low material budget. LF-Monopix1 and TJ-Monopix1 are large DMAPS prototypes produced in 150 nm LFoundry and 180 nm TowerJazz technology, respectively, that follow two different design concepts regarding the charge collection electrode. Prototypes of both development lines have been extensively tested and characterized over the last years. The second-generation Monopix prototypes, Monopix2, were recently produced. They were designed to address the shortcomings of their predecessors, in particular related to radiation hardness and cross talk, and further improve upon their performance. The latest measurements with LF-Monopix1 and TJ-Monopix1 concerning hit efficiency, depletion, and radiation hardness as well as the initial test results of the new Monopix2 prototypes are presented

LF-Monopix1 and TJ-Monopix1 are depleted monolithic active pixel sensors (DMAPS) in 150 nm LFoundry and 180 nm TowerJazz CMOS technologies respectively. They are designed for usage in high-rate and high-radiation environments such as the ATLAS Inner Tracker at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). Both chips are read out using a column-drain readout architecture. LF-Monopix1 follows a design with large charge collection electrode where readout electronics are placed inside. Generally, this offers a homogeneous electrical field in the sensor and short drift distances. TJ-Monopix1 employs a small charge collection electrode with readout electronics separated from the electrode and an additional n-type implant to achieve full depletion of the sensitive volume. This approach offers a low sensor capacitance and therefore low noise and is typically implemented with small pixel size. Both detectors have been characterized before and after irradiation using lab tests and particle beams., 7 pages, 8 figures. Proceedings of the 12th International "Hiroshima" Symposium on the Development and Application of Semiconductor Tracking Detectors

Background Fifth metatarsal fractures are common, and the outcome with conservative treatment is generally very satisfactory. Operative treatment is only used for selected injuries, particularly stress fractures. Traditionally these patients are routinely reviewed at a fracture clinic, mainly due to the perceived risk of non-union with a Jones’ fracture. In 2011 we introduced a standardised protocol to promote weight bearing as pain allowed with an elasticated support or a removable boot. Patients were discharged with structured advice and a help-line number to access care if required, but no further face-to-face review was arranged. More complex cases were reviewed at a “virtual clinic.” Our hypothesis was that the introduction of this standardised protocol would be safe, patient-centred and significantly reduce unnecessary outpatient clinic review. Patients and methods We audited fracture clinic attendance and outcomes 1 year before and 1 year after the protocol was introduced in 2011. All radiographs taken at the Emergency Department (ED) presentation were reviewed and classified independently for validation. Results From 2009 to 2010, 279 patients who presented to the ED with fifth metatarsal fractures were referred to a fracture clinic. Of these 279 patients, 267 (96%) attended the fracture clinic, resulting in an overall total of 491 outpatient attendances. Three (1%) were treated operatively for delayed/non-union. From 2011 to 2012, 339 patients presented to the ED with fifth metatarsal fractures – only 67 (20%) were referred to a fracture clinic. 62 (18%) attended clinic appointments with 102 appointments in total. Five (1%) required operative intervention. Conclusion Our study showed no added clinical value for routine outpatient follow-up of fifth metatarsal fractures. Patients can be safely discharged and allowed to bear weight at the time of initial ED presentation if they are provided with appropriate information and ready access to experienced fracture clinic staff.

We contribute to the literature by developing a normative theory of the relationship between stock and mutual insurers based on a contingent claims framework. To consistently price policies provided by firms in these two legal forms of organization, we extend the work of Doherty and Garven (1986) to the mutual case, thus ensuring that the formulae for the stock insurer are nested in our more general model. This set-up allows us to separately consider the ownership and policyholder stakes included in the mutual insurance premium and explicitly takes into account the right to charge additional premiums in times of financial distress, restrictions on the ability of members to realize the value of their equity stake, as well as relevant market frictions. A numerical implementation of our model shows that, for the premiums of stock and mutual insurers to be equal, the latter would need to hold comparatively less equity capital. We then evaluate panel data for the German motor liability insurance sector and demonstrate that observed premiums are not consistent with our normative findings. The combination of theory and empirical evidence suggests that policies offered by stock insurers are overpriced relative to policies of mutuals. Consequently, we suspect considerable wealth transfers between the stakeholder groups.

Background Minimally displaced radial head and neck fractures are common and the outcome with conservative treatment is generally excellent. A new protocol was introduced to manage patients with these suspected fractures at a major urban hospital. Simple, undisplaced fractures without other associated injuries or instability were discharged with structured advice but no further face-to-face review. Patients with more complex injuries were reviewed at a "virtual clinic." The aim of this study was to examine the outcome of this process in terms of patient flow, satisfaction, reattendance, and reintervention. Methods The 202 eligible patients, who presented during a 1-year period from October 2011 to October 2012, were identified retrospectively from a prospectively collected administrative database. Mason type III and IV fractures were excluded. A questionnaire was administered by mail or phone call to assess satisfaction with the process, information received, and function. Results Twenty (10%) patients required face-to-face review in a clinic, whereas 182 (90%) were managed with direct discharge; 155 patients responded to the survey (77%). The overall satisfaction rate was 96% in the suspected fracture group and 87% in the definite fracture group ( P = .08). Satisfaction with the information provided was 95%. Two (1%) required late surgical intervention. Conclusion In this study, patients with suspected Mason I or II fractures were managed with limited face-to-face follow-up with high satisfaction rates. The reintervention rate was extremely low. This process has significant benefits to patients, who have fewer hospital visits, and to orthopaedic departments, which have more time to devote to complex cases.

An effective scheduling decision is one of the key factors towards improving the efficiency of a system’s performance, particularly in the instance of multiple products thus dispatching rules have been widely used for real-time scheduling because they can provide a very quick and pretty good solution. However, deciding how to select appropriate rules is very difficult. In this paper, we develop evolutionary simulation-based heuristics to construct near-optimal solutions for dispatching rule allocation. Our heuristic is easy to use and gives a manager a useful tool for testing a configuration that can minimize certain performance measures. The optimization heuristics are used to determine priority strategies to maximize the performance of a complex manufacturing system with a large number of different products, along with an overtime that changes with a mix of different process types, including assembly and disassembly operations and with different types of internal and external disturbances. Modeling is carried out using discrete-event simulation. Case study analysis is of a commercial offset printing production system.

Purpose The purpose was to assess the differences between subcutaneous basal/bolus and sliding scale insulin protocols in patients admitted with type 2 diabetes on non-critical care units. Methods A retrospective review of electronic medical records was conducted on a convenience sample of inpatients in a central-city teaching hospital. Results The findings were that basal/bolus protocols achieved American Diabetes Association glycemic targets on fasting, mean, and discharge blood glucoses. Conclusions This study provided insight into glycemic control and interdisciplinary education needs at this hospital. Evidence revealed that basal/bolus insulin protocols can achieve glycemic targets.

Production leveling (heijunka) is one of the lean tool that is used to stabilize a manufacturing system (reduce the bullwhip effect). Production leveling is a kind of cyclic scheduling that creates production regularity and coordination simplicity. This article describes simulation modeling and multivariate analysis of an assembly production line in a microelectronics factory. The assembly line is organized according to lean principles with heijunka-kanban production control. The simulation technique is applied to evaluate the performance of the manufacturing system which requires modifications to achieve two objectives, i.e. to minimize the average throughput time and to minimize the average work-in-progress. The case study is meant to gain an understanding of the way the appropriate arrangement of heijunka improves both throughput time and work-in-progress, and to supply an illustrative example of discrete event simulation as a useful tool in facilitating heijunka.

Local disturbances of thermal stability in the superconducting materials may initiate the formation of the normal zones. One of the reasons for these disturbances is thermal processes in metal leads connected to the superconductor. Here, superconducting tapes with metal leads are analyzed thermally and from the point of view of current distribution. The results show that the Joule's heat, generated in the vicinity of the metal–superconductor junction may initiate propagation of a normal zone in the superconductor and may cause its thermal runaway.

We present the recent development of DMAPS (Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor), implemented with a Toshiba 130 nm CMOS process. Unlike in the case of standard MAPS technologies which are based on an epi-layer, this process provides a high-resistive substrate that enables larger signal and faster charge collection by drift in a 50−300μm thick depleted layer. Since this process also enables the use of deep n-wells to isolate the collection electrodes from the thin active device layer, NMOS and PMOS transistors are available for the readout electronics in each pixel cell. In order to characterize the technology, we implemented a simple three transistor readout with a variety of pixel pitches and input FET sizes. This layout variety gives us a clue on sensor characteristics for future optimization, such as the input detector capacitance or leakage current. In the initial measurement, the radiation spectra were obtained from 55Fe with an energy resolution of 770 eV (FWHM) and 90Sr with the MVP of 4165 e−.

Radial head replacement is controversial as radial head excision is usually effective for isolated comminuted fractures and arthritis. The main role is to aid stability in acute fracture-dislocations and permit early mobilization when the radial head, a secondary stabilizer, cannot be rigidly fixed. Metal radial head replacements are superior to silicone prostheses as they do not deform under load, break or induce inflammatory reactions. There is however little evidence to support the use of a prosthesis for an acute radial head fracture when the medial collateral ligament of the elbow, the primary stabilizer, is intact. There are few successful reports of its use for chronic valgus instability, neglected posterior elbow subluxation and proximal radial migration.

Amorphous tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) thin films on n-type Si substrates were prepared by d.c. magnetron reactive sputtering deposition technique. It was observed that the leakage current decreased with time when a voltage bias was first applied. The cause of this behavior was investigated using bias-temperature-stress test technique combined with the capacitance-voltage measurement with structures of Al/Ta2O5/Si metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors, and was identified to be owing to electron trapping in the Ta2O5 film and at the Ta2O5/Si interfaces. The current injection technique was further used to correlate the amount of charge trapped in the Ta2O5 with the leakage current passed through the Ta2O5 film, and it was found that most of the trapped electrons were located at the Ta2O5/Si interface. This electron trapping effect on the conduction mechanisms of the Ta2O5 films and the related reliability issues in dynamic random access memories applications are discussed.

The small GTPase DiRas1 has tumor-suppressive activities, unlike the oncogenic properties more common to small GTPases such as K-Ras and RhoA. Although DiRas1 has been found to be a tumor suppressor in gliomas and esophageal squamous cell carcinomas, the mechanisms by which it inhibits malignant phenotypes have not been fully determined. In this study, we demonstrate that DiRas1 binds to SmgGDS, a protein that promotes the activation of several oncogenic GTPases. In silico docking studies predict that DiRas1 binds to SmgGDS in a manner similar to other small GTPases. SmgGDS is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for RhoA, but we report here that SmgGDS does not mediate GDP/GTP exchange on DiRas1. Intriguingly, DiRas1 acts similarly to a dominant-negative small GTPase, binding to SmgGDS and inhibiting SmgGDS binding to other small GTPases, including K-Ras4B, RhoA, and Rap1A. DiRas1 is expressed in normal breast tissue, but its expression is decreased in most breast cancers, similar to its family member DiRas3 (ARHI). DiRas1 inhibits RhoA- and SmgGDS-mediated NF-κB transcriptional activity in HEK293T cells. We also report that DiRas1 suppresses basal NF-κB activation in breast cancer and glioblastoma cell lines. Taken together, our data support a model in which DiRas1 expression inhibits malignant features of cancers in part by nonproductively binding to SmgGDS and inhibiting the binding of other small GTPases to SmgGDS.

A change of more than five orders of magnitude of leakage current density has been observed in tantalum oxide films with a dielectric constant ranging from 20 to 45. The films were deposited by a simple DC reactive sputtering technique. The measured leakage current density dependence on the film's dielectric constant can be explained by the Poole-Frenkel potential barrier model in which the barrier height is inversely proportional to the dielectric constant of the material. This intrinsic dielectric constant dependence of the trap barrier may give a limit on the lowest leakage current density that one can obtain in a high dielectric constant film.

A lipoprotein lipase (LpL) gene defect has been identified, a G—-A transition at nucleotide position 446 of exon 3, resulting in a premature termination codon (Trp—-stop) at amino acid residue 64. This defect was identified in a Type I hyperlipoproteinemic subject with an amino acid residue 194 defect in the other allele. Plasma lipoprotein values as well as LpL mass and activity in postheparin plasma were determined in the subjects with the residue 64 defect and in other LpL-deficient heterozygotes. LpL mass levels in both the Type I and the other subject with a 64 LpL defect were markedly reduced. This may be explained by rapid degradation of LpL protein or decreased secretion from the 64 defective allele. Alternatively, the marked reduction or absence of mass associated with the 64 defect may be due to synthesis of a severely truncated protein which escapes immunologic detection.

Oxidation of lipoproteins is believed to play a key role in atherogenesis. In this study, low density lipoproteins (LDL) was subjected to oxidation in the presence of either human umbilical vein endothelial cells or with Cu+2 ions and the major oxides formed were identified. While cholesterol-alpha-epoxide (C-alpha EP) was the major product of cholesterol peroxidation in the presence of endothelial cells, cholest-3,5-dien-7-one (CD) predominated in the presence of Cu+2 ion. Both steroids were identified by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. HDL cholesterol was resistant to oxidation. When tested on human skin fibroblasts in culture C-alpha EP (10 micrograms/ml) caused marked stimulation of 14C-oleate incorporation into cholesterol esters, while CD stimulated cholesterol esterification only mildly. These studies show that a) C-alpha EP is the major peroxidation product of LDL cholesterol moiety in the presence of endothelial cells and b) it causes marked stimulation of cholesterol esterification in cells. C-alpha EP may play a key role in increasing cholesterol esterification noted in atherogenesis.

Mouse L cell fibroblasts were transfected with cloned cDNA encoding rat liver fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) also known as sterol carrier protein. Stable transfectant cell lines were selected and expression of L-FABP determined using Western blot analysis. The nontransfected controls and low expression cells did not differ significantly in any of the properties examined. All cell lines showed similar doubling times but cells expressing high levels of L-FABP attained 2-fold higher cell saturation density and differed significantly in their lipid metabolism as indicated by 1) higher cholesterol ester and phospholipid content, and 2) decreased sterol/phospholipid ratio. The observed changes in the lipid composition predicted a lower degree of membrane-lipid order (higher fluidity) in the plasma membranes of cells expressing high levels of L-FABP. Therefore, fluorescent molecule, 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene, and multifrequency (1-250 MHz) phase and modulation fluorometry were used to probe the effect of L-FABP expression on membrane structure. Steady-state polarization and limiting anisotropy of diphenylhexatriene were significantly lower in the isolated plasma membrane vesicles from the high expression clones. The observed changes in L-cells as a result of de novo expression of L-FABP are consistent with the ability of this protein to bind sterols and fatty acids, stimulate sterol esterification, and stimulate phospholipid biosynthesis. This evidence is supportive of a physiologic role for L-FABP in modulating cellular lipid metabolism and membrane structure.

An audit of 32 displaced supracondylar fractures of the humerus in children treated at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary between June 1990 and September 1992 was carried out. Six fractures were classified as Grade 2 (one cortex intact) and 26 were Grade 3 (no cortical contact). All grade 2 fractures were treated non-operatively with good results. Relatively poor results were obtained when displaced fractures were treated non-operatively with manipulation and plaster immobilization. Seven patients underwent manipulation and percutaneous pinning but two developed a cubitus varus deformity. Open reduction and internal fixation with two K-wires gave the best results with no deformity in ten patients. We therefore conclude that this is the optimal method of treatment in a hospital which deals with relatively few completely displaced fractures, with the cosmetic appearance of the scar being minimized by a medial approach.