Justifying the development of a business intelligence system is challenging when the primary beneficiaries of the system are internal to the company responsible for that development; it is even harder to justify when the system is designed to produce a new service that is radically different than current in-house manufactured products. This case explores the possibility of a tire manufacturer d...

The pneumococcal virulence factors include capsule, PspA, PspC, and Ply. Cytometric analysis demonstrated that the greatest levels of C3 deposition were on a Deltaply PspA(-) PspC(-) mutant. Also, Ply, PspA, and PspC expression resulted in C3 degradation in vitro and in vivo. Finally, blood clearance assays demonstrated that there was enhanced clearance of Deltaply PspA(-) PspC(-) pneumococci c...

Arthritic joints are chock-full of activated immune cells. These cells produce chemotactic proteins that lure other cells into the joint, setting up a vicious cycle of inflammation. But what instigates this cycle in the first place? A study by Kim et al. (page 829) puts much of the blame on neutrophils. Neutrophils—granular cells that are among the immune system’s earliest responders during inf...

Intra-ply shear locking results in unrealistic fibre stresses and spurious wrinkling in composite forming simulations. Three remedies are investigated: aligning the mesh, applying reduced integration and using multi-field elements. The bias extension simulation is used to test several triangular and quadrilateral elements on their capability to avoid locking. Their performance under large defor...

We study the transverse cracking of the 90◦ ply in [0/90]S cross-ply laminates by means of a discrete element method. To model the 90◦ ply a two-dimensional triangular lattice of springs is constructed where nodes of the lattice model fibers, and springs with random breaking thresholds represent the disordered matrix material in between. The spring-lattice is coupled by interface springs to two...

A pneumolysin-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (PLY-ELISA) for the detection of pneumolysin in urine was developed and evaluated in comparison with the commercially available Binax Now Streptococcus pneumoniae test (Binax, Portland, ME) for the diagnosis of pneumococcal infections. Assay sensitivity was evaluated using urine from 108 patients with culture-confirmed pneumococcal infect...

In conventional manufacturing processes of composites, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) laminates have been made by stacking unidirectional or woven prepreg sheets. Recently, as a manufacturing process of CFRP, 3D printing of CFRP composites has been developed. The 3D printing process of CFRP composites enables us to fabricate CFRP laminates with arbitrary curvilinear fibre plies. This in...

Vehicle vibration exposure has been linked to chronic back pain and low back symptoms among agricultural tractor drivers. The objectives of this study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) were to assess driver whole body vibration (WBV) exposures and recommend interventions to reduce the risk of back related injuries, particularly relative to vehicle jarring/jolt...

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the current dollar value of all final goods and services that are produced within a country within a given period of time. “Goods” are physical things that we consume (like a shirt) while “services” are intangible things that we consume but which are not necessarily physical (like education). “Final” means that intermediate goods are excluded from the calculation...