An integrated microfluidic system for long-term perfusion culture and on-line monitoring of intestinal tissue models

Lab on a Chip ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Kimura ◽  
Takatoki Yamamoto ◽  
Hitomi Sakai ◽  
Yasuyuki Sakai ◽  
Teruo Fujii
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Aniela Bălăcescu ◽  
Radu Șerban Zaharia

Abstract Tourist services represent a category of services in which the inseparability of production and consumption, the inability to be storable, the immateriality, and last but not least non-durability, induces in tourism management a number of peculiarities and difficulties. Under these circumstances the development of medium-term strategies involves long-term studies regarding on the one hand the developments and characteristics of the demand, and on the other hand the tourist potential analysis at regional and local level. Although in the past 20 years there has been tremendous growth of on-line booking made by household users, the tour operators agencies as well as those with sales activity continue to offer the specific services for a large number of tourists, that number, in the case of domestic tourism, increased by 1.6 times in case of the tour operators and by 4.44 times in case of the agencies with sales activity. At the same time, there have been changes in the preferences of tourists regarding their holiday destinations in Romania. Started on these considerations, paper based on a logistic model, examines the evolution of the probabilities and scores corresponding to the way the Romanian tourists spend their holidays on the types of tourism agencies, actions and tourist areas in Romania.


Author(s):  
Rodrigo Cueva ◽  
Guillem Rufian ◽  
Maria Gabriela Valdes

The use of Customer Relationship Managers to foster customers loyalty has become one of the most common business strategies in the past years.  However, CRM solutions do not fill the abundance of happily ever-after relationships that business needs, and each client’s perception is different in the buying process.  Therefore, the experience must be precise, in order to extend the loyalty period of a customer as much as possible. One of the economic sectors in which CRM’s have improved this experience is retailing, where the personalized attention to the customer is a key factor.  However, brick and mortar experiences are not enough to be aware in how environmental changes could affect the industry trends in the long term.  A base unified theoretical framework must be taken into consideration, in order to develop an adaptable model for constructing or implementing CRMs into companies. Thanks to this approximation, the information is complemented, and the outcome will increment the quality in any Marketing/Sales initiative. The goal of this article is to explore the different factors grouped by three main domains within the impact of service quality, from a consumer’s perspective, in both on-line and off-line retailing sector.  Secondly, we plan to go a step further and extract base guidelines about previous analysis for designing CRM’s solutions focused on the loyalty of the customers for a specific retailing sector and its product: Sports Running Shoes.


Author(s):  
J. W. Yun ◽  
S. Y. Lee ◽  
B. W. Choi ◽  
H. K. Oh ◽  
J. S. Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1075-1097
Author(s):  
A. Sarkissian ◽  
J. Slusser

Abstract. Water vapor total column measurements at Observatoire de Haute Provence (5°42' E, +43°55' N), south of France, were obtained using observations of astronomical objects made between July 1994 and December 2004 on the 193-cm telescope with the high-resolution spectrometer Elodie. Spectra of stars, nebulae, and other astronomical objects were taken regularly during 10 years. More than 18 000 spectra from 400 nm to 680 nm are available on-line in the Elodie Archive. This archive, usually explored by astronomers, contains information to study the atmosphere of the Earth. Water vapor absorption lines appear in the visible in delimited bands that astronomers often avoid for their spectral analysis. We used the Elodie Archive with two objectives: firstly, to retrieve seasonal variability and long-term trend of atmospheric water vapor, and secondly, to remove signatures in spectra for further astronomical or geophysical use. The tools presented here are developed following, when possible, formats and standards recommended by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance.


1992 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Mignosa ◽  
Alessandro Paoletti

The paper describes a theoretical analysis and a numerical assessment of pollutant loads discharged from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) - with or without stormwater tanks – into the environment. The theoretical approach was based on certain simple assumptions, reasonably valid if the time scale of the problem involved is long enough (month/ year), in that single-event simulation is not interesting at all. Two main parameters related to the rainfall regime were found to be significant: the total volume of water discharged from the structure and the effective mixing factor between sanitary sewage and storm runoff. A numerical assessment of these two parameters was then made, on an annual basis, by means of a long-term rainfall series recorded in Milan, Italy. Both the “simple” CSO structure and the CSO coupled with stormwater tanks (on-line or off-line) were considered. The resulting graphs make it possible to evaluate the total annual load discharged from CSOs into the environment and the potential reduction obtained by adding a storage capacity to the overflow. This estimation could be of interest for persistent pollutants (phosphorus, heavy metals) discharged into low-recirculation bodies (lakes, estuaries, lagoons, closed seas).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Elphick ◽  
Nicki Barker ◽  
Aditi Singh ◽  
Catherine Jesson ◽  
Omendra Narayan

Collections ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 155019062110527
Author(s):  
J.A. Pryse

The spread of COVID-19 has created numerous challenges in the field of archive management. Limited in-house office space, furloughs of personnel, and inconsistency, has highlighted the potential for the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center Archives (Center) to develop and implement improved accessibility measures to thousands of linear feet of material. Addition ally, the Center has found unique opportunities to collaborate with multiple academic institutions to propose large-scale digitization program exhibitions using the Center’s remote workflow model. One of the largest, most complex collections the Center has worked with during this time is the Political Commercial Collection (the Collection), which holds 119,000 film, audio, and videotape recordings of commercials aired between 1936 and present. It is the largest collection of political commercials in the world. The Center has developed a working pilot digitization project that has currently resulted in access to 16,000 digital videos for public researchers and over 10,000 available for on-line streaming during the pilot phase between April 16, 2020, and December 1, 2020. This paper presents the practical application of the Center’s simplified “Linear Reciprocity Workflow Model” to provide a systematic solution for digital and long-term preservation of complex collections. The Center has proven that limited personnel and reduced resources need not interrupt continued access to archival repositories.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (52) ◽  
pp. 14915-14920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yih Yang Chen ◽  
Pamuditha N. Silva ◽  
Abdullah Muhammad Syed ◽  
Shrey Sindhwani ◽  
Jonathan V. Rocheleau ◽  
...  

On-chip imaging of intact three-dimensional tissues within microfluidic devices is fundamentally hindered by intratissue optical scattering, which impedes their use as tissue models for high-throughput screening assays. Here, we engineered a microfluidic system that preserves and converts tissues into optically transparent structures in less than 1 d, which is 20× faster than current passive clearing approaches. Accelerated clearing was achieved because the microfluidic system enhanced the exchange of interstitial fluids by 567-fold, which increased the rate of removal of optically scattering lipid molecules from the cross-linked tissue. Our enhanced clearing process allowed us to fluorescently image and map the segregation and compartmentalization of different cells during the formation of tumor spheroids, and to track the degradation of vasculature over time within extracted murine pancreatic islets in static culture, which may have implications on the efficacy of beta-cell transplantation treatments for type 1 diabetes. We further developed an image analysis algorithm that automates the analysis of the vasculature connectivity, volume, and cellular spatial distribution of the intact tissue. Our technique allows whole tissue analysis in microfluidic systems, and has implications in the development of organ-on-a-chip systems, high-throughput drug screening devices, and in regenerative medicine.


2010 ◽  
pp. 470-485
Author(s):  
Habib Sedehi

Electronic commerce, marketing on line, and network economy are today’s keywords of (possible) success. But how many managers effectively know about the cost and benefits of starting to sell their products and services through the Web? How much they should invest at the beginning and how long does it takes to have a break-even point of their investment? In order to give support for better understanding the process of the Web marketing and to have more elements to decide to “dive” or not in this virtual world a System Dynamics (SD) model (Forrester J.W. 1961, 1971, 1980), has been developed. The model has the aim to support strategic decisions for SME involvement in e-Commerce, pointed out to guarantee sustainable growth and medium-long term success. The project e-Impresa1 analyses the whole process of the investment in building and maintaining a web site, taking into account the main variables of E-commerce. Through a case study, a SD business game model has been developed. The model gives the opportunity to users to evaluate different what-if analysis through the simulation period time (2 years) at each model step time (4 weeks). This chapter will explain the overall architecture of the model and will present some results of use of the model in different conditions.


Gerontology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena M. Schimke ◽  
Swaraj Paul ◽  
Katharina Tillmann ◽  
Günter Lepperdinger ◽  
Robert G. Stigler

Background: Due to aging, tissue regeneration gradually declines. Contemporary strategies to promote tissue-specific regeneration, in particular in elderly patients, often include synthetic material apt for implantation primarily aiming at upholding body functions and regaining appropriate anatomical and functional integrity. Objective: Biomaterials suitable for complex reconstruction surgical procedures have to exert high physicochemical stability and biocompatibility. Method: A polymer made of poly-L-lactic acid and poly-ε-caprolactone was synthesized by means of a novel tin-free catalytic process. The material was tested in a bioreactor-assisted perfusion culture and implanted in a sheep model for lateral augmentation of the mandible. Histological and volumetric evaluation was performed 3 and 6 months post-implantation. Results: After synthesis the material could be further refined by cryogrinding and sintering, thus yielding differently porous scaffolds that exhibited a firm and stable appearance. In perfusion culture, no disintegration was observed for extended periods of up to 7 weeks, while mesenchymal stromal cells readily attached to the material, steadily proliferated, and deposited extracellular calcium. The material was tested in vivo together with autologous bone marrow-derived stromal cells. Up to 6 months post-implantation, the material hardly changed in shape with composition also refraining from foreign body reactions. Conclusion: Given the long-term shape stability in vivo, featuring imperceptible degradation and little scarring as well as exerting good compatibility to cells and surrounding tissues, this novel biomaterial is suitable as a space filler in large anatomical defects.


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