During phase two of the SPICE trials, the Proposed Draft Technical Report version of ISO/IEC 15504 is being empirically evaluated. This document set is intended to become an international standard for Software Process Assessment. One thread of evaluations being conducted during these trials is the extent of reliability of assessments based on ISO/IEC PDTR 15504. In this paper we present the fir...

Contractile reserve decreases with advancing age and chronic isoproterenol (ISO) administration is a well-characterized model of cardiac hypertrophy known to impair cardiovascular function. This study evaluated whether nonsenescent, mature adult rats are more susceptible to detrimental effects of chronic ISO administration than younger adult rats. Rats received daily injections of ISO (0.1 mg/k...

The role of scale interactions in the maintenance of eddy kinetic energy (EKE) during the extreme phases of the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) is examined through the construction of a new eddy energetics diagnostic tool that separates the effects of ISO and a low-frequency background state (LFBS; with periods longer than 90 days). The LFBS always contributes positively toward the EKE in the b...

We studied the putative relaxant effects of several isoprostanes (8-iso-PGE1, and 8-iso-PGE2, 8-iso-PGF1alpha, 8-iso-PGF1beta, 8-iso-PGF2alpha, and 8-iso-PGF2beta) on pulmonary (PA), mesenteric (MA), coronary (CA) arteries and pulmonary veins (PV), from newborn and 2-week-old piglets. Isoprostanes were compared with agonists of the EP (PGE1, PGE2, and misoprostol), DP (PGD2), and IP (iloprost) ...

Our objective was to investigate the effects of doxycycline, a matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitor (MMPi) on beta-agonist-induced myocardial fibrosis and MMP expression. Twenly-four Wistar-Kyoto rats were divided into 3 groups: control (CTL; n=8), isoproterenol (ISO; n=8), and isoproterenol with doxycycline (ISO+DOX; n=8). ISO and ISO+DOX rats received L-isoproterenol (2.0 mg/kg/d) for 14 ...

background and aims: one of the principles of the quality management systems in organizations is attention to customer centered approach and one of the scales for evaluation of the efficacy of provided services is customer satisfaction. this research aimed to compare satisfaction levels of customers attending primary health care centers in bardsir (with iso certificate) and zarand (without iso ...