Search

This paper investigates the effects of investment and inspection policies on an integrated production–inventory model involving defective items and upstream advance-cash-credit payment provided by the supplier. In this model, retailers offer customers a downstream credit period. Furthermore, the defective rate of the item can be improved through capital co-investment by the supplier and retailer. The objective of this study was to determine the optimal shipping quantity, order quantity, and investment alternatives for maximizing the supply chain’s joint total profit per unit time. An algorithm was developed to obtain the optimal solution for the proposed problem. Several numerical examples are used to demonstrate the proposed model and analyze the effects of parameters changes on the optimal solutions. Finally, management implications for relevant decision makers are obtained from the numerical examples.

BACKGROUND: Acute renal infarction is a rare and under-diagnosed disease for which the optimal treatment is unknown. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the utility of catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) to treat acute renal infarction. METHODS: From November 2010 to September 2017, 13 patients with acute renal infarction were treated with CDT. The diagnosis was confirmed by contrast-enhanced computed tomography and renal angiography. RESULTS: The most common symptoms and signs were flank pain (53.8%) and abdominal pain (30.8%). More than two-thirds of the patients (69.2%) had atrial fibrillation. In successful reperfusion cases, the median time from symptom onset to diagnosis was 6 hours, and the average time from diagnosis to treatment was 3.5 hours. Complete resolution of thrombi in the renal artery was achieved in 10 of the 13 patients (76.9%) and partial resolution in two patients (15.4%). Only one patient (7.7%) failed to respond to treatment. Compared with admission, renal function was significantly improved at 6 months. No major complications occurred during the course of CDT therapy. CONCLUSIONS: CDT offers an alternative to surgical intervention and can achieve good angiographic results with an early diagnosis and intervention. It is relatively safe and can restore at least partial renal function.

Introduction: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) frequently experience concurrent comorbidities; therefore, risk assessment for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) is very important. Objectives: We explored the association between COPD and risk of MACEs with three common clinical events: acute myocardial infarction (AMI), ischemic stroke (IS), and cardiovascular death (CVD). Methods: We evaluated the predictive value of the CHA2DS2-VASc score (congestive heart failure [C], hypertension [H), age [A], diabetes [D), stroke [S], and vascular disease [VASc]) for MACEs in COPD patients. In this observational study, we retrospectively reviewed the records of 29258 patients with COPD between 2005 and 2009 in relation to MACE risk by using the CHA2DS2-VASc score. We calculated the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using a significance level of 0.05. Results: Patients with COPD had significantly (P

This study investigated a production-inventory model with defective items under a two-part trade credit where the agreement of conditionally freight concession is considered in the integration supply chain. We assume the inspection process is conducted by the retailer before selling incoming items. All the defective items are discovered, stored and then sold as a single batch to a secondary market at a decreased price. Furthermore, shortages are allowed and completely backlogged for the retailer. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal number of shipments per production cycle for the supplier, and the optimal length of time wherein there is no inventory shortage and replenishment cycle for the retailer such that the total profit function has a maximum value. In theoretical analysis, the existence and uniqueness of the optimal solutions are shown and an algorithm is developed to find the optimal solutions. Furthermore, numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the solution procedures and a sensitivity analysis of the optimal solutions regarding all parameters are also carried out.

In the paper, a near-infrared-ray (NIR) and side-view video based low-complexity drowsy driver detection system is developed for day and night applications. The proposed system detects drowsy conditions effectively whether or not glasses. To reduce the redundant computations, the pre-defined ROI (region of interest) is used at the procedures of face, glasses bridge, eyes, and nose feature detections. By the geometric based facial image processing, the eyes and nose positions are recognized, and the closed eyes and nod situations due to drowsiness are detected effectively. After simulating by self-made driver's video datasets, the average open/closed eyes detection accuracy rates without/with glasses are 95% and 84% in day, and are 89% and 87% in night, and the average drowsy detection accuracy is up to 90%. By software optimizations, the processing speed operates up to 150fps and 20fps in PC and the embedded system respectively for real-time drowsy driver detections.

Antioxidants contents and antioxidative enzymes and their activities in fresh aerial tissues of Hypericum sampsonii (Sampson's St John's Wort), Hypericum japonicum (Japanese St John's Wort) and Hypericum perforatum were investigated. Hypericum sampsonii contained more total ascorbate [34.33 μmol g -1 fresh weight (FW)] than H. perforatum (57% less) and H. japonicum (82% less). It also contained more thiol and phenolics than two other species. Hypericum japonicum had highest superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity (8.74 mmol min -1 g -1 FW), followed by H. sampsonii (2% less) and H. perforatum (37% less). Hot-air dried H. perforatum materials contained more thiol [208.7 μmol g -1 dry weight (DW)] and phenolics (352.82 mg g -1 DW) than freeze-dried and fresh materials. Both drying treatments decreased the activities of antioxidative enzymes in aerial tissues of H. perforatum. However, freeze-dried H. perforatum contained the highest SOD activity (5.42 mmol min -1 g -1 DW) among the antioxidative enzymes measured from both freeze-dried and hot-air dried tissues (ranged from 0.02 to 2.65 μmol min -1 g -1 DW).

The 16/9 widescreen TV is becoming popular in the marketplace; however, its aspect ratio is not compatible with the conventional 4/3 SDTV program. We propose a nonuniform conversion to efficiently display 4/3 SDTV programs on a 16/9 high-definition television (HDTV) monitor, for real time HDTV receivers, a parallel video converter is also proposed using nonuniform interpolation. To trade off complexity and performance, we only use one field-memory and one line-buffer for motion adaptation to interpolate the pixels, which can be finished by the parallel computation kernel in one clock cycle. In order to combine parallel computation, the memory-slice method is employed, which is efficiently controlled by a state machine for nonuniform interpolation. With parallel conversion, a high-speed video converter can be achieved for advanced HDTV receivers.

In this paper, we propose the algorithms to convert the NTSC format to the HDTV based upon a block by block methodology. Efficiently resembling the block processing concept built in the future HDTV system, the proposed block-by-block algorithms achieve a faster processing speed than the pixel-by-pixel ones. The complete conversion system, including interlaced to progressive, sampling rate, line rate, and aspect ratio conversions, is realized in software. The simulation results show that very good quality by visual perception and high PSNR results are obtained in the converted image sequences. >

A fuzzy tree approach is proposed to solve the color correction problems between a scanner and a printer. Experimental results show that this methodology produces a good correction performance and has a low computational complexity.