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Purpose: In early 2000s Six Sigma and Lean were combined into Lean Six Sigma (LSS), which has been one of the major strategic quality initiatives all over the world. Now, we are in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution (IR), which changes almost everything including LSS and quality management (QM) in the companies. We need new paradigm of LSS to boost LSS activities in this 4th IR era. In this

The response of floating pile foundations in deep deposits of soft clay is governed by the settlements within the clay deposit surrounding the piles. A long-duration thermal response test (TRT) has been performed to assess the impact of heating and cooling on the geotechnical performance of a vertically loaded slender tubular steel pile in a deep deposit of sensitive clay. The results from the ins

Prominent features of HD neuropathology are the intranuclear and cytoplasmic inclusions of huntingtin and striatal and cortical neuronal cell death. Recently, synaptic defects have been reported on HD-related studies, including impairment of neurotransmitter release and alterations of synaptic components. However, the definite characteristics of synapse dysfunction and the underlying mechanisms re

Background: Intensive care unit (ICU)-acquired delirium is frequent and associated with poor short- and long-term outcomes for patients in ICUs. It therefore constitutes a major healthcare problem. Despite limited evidence, haloperidol is the most frequently used pharmacological intervention against ICU-acquired delirium. Agents intervening against Delirium in the ICU (AID-ICU) is an international

The Eurosiberian Carbonflux project was designed to address the feasibility of inferring the regional carbon balance over Europe and Siberia from a hierarchy of models and atmospheric CO2 measurements over the continent. Such atmospheric CO2 concentrations results from the combination of connective boundary layer dynamics, synoptic events, large-scale transport of CO2, and regional surface fluxes

Semi-arid regions play an increasingly important role as a sink within the global carbon (C) cycle and is the main biome driving inter-annual variability in carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake by terrestrial ecosystems. This indicates the need for detailed studies of spatiotemporal variability in C cycling for semi-arid ecosystems. We have synthesized data on the land-atmosphere exchange of CO2 measured w

Objective: High knee extensor strength may be important to protect against the development of knee osteoarthritis (OA) in populations at elevated risk, such as individuals with meniscal pathology. We investigated the extent to which high knee extensor muscle strength was associated with a decreased risk of developing radiographic or symptomatic knee OA in individuals with medial meniscal pathology

Tropical biodiversity is threatened by the expansion of oil-palm plantations. Reduced-impact farming systems such as agroforests, have been proposed to increase biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In regions where oil-palm plantations already dominate the landscape, this increase can only be achieved through systematic ecological restoration. However, our knowledge about the underlying ecologi

Adaptor proteins assist proteases in degrading specific proteins under appropriate conditions. The adaptor protein YjbH promotes the degradation of an important global transcriptional regulator Spx, which controls the expression of hundreds of genes and operons in response to thiol-specific oxidative stress in Bacillus subtilis. Under normal growth conditions, the transcription factor is bound to

We have estimated the binding affinity of three sets of ligands of the heat-shock protein 90 in the D3R grand challenge blind test competition. We have employed four different methods, based on five different crystal structures: first, we docked the ligands to the proteins with induced-fit docking with the Glide software and calculated binding affinities with three energy functions. Second, the do

Plant cells have two main modes of growth generating anisotropic structures. Diffuse growth where whole cell walls extend in specific directions, guided by anisotropically positioned cellulose fibers, and tip growth, with inhomogeneous addition of new cell wall material at the tip of the structure. Cells are known to regulate these processes via molecular signals and the cytoskeleton. Mechanical s

Recent evidence has revealed the role of mechanical cues in the development of shapes in organisms. This thesis is an effort to test some of the fundamental hypotheses about the relation between mechanics and patterning in plants. To do this, we develop mechanical models designed to include specific features of plant cell walls. These are heterogeneous stiffness and material anisotropy as well as

Background: Six different N-terminal amyloid precursor protein (APP) fragments, with molecular weight ∼12 kDa, have previously been identified in human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). In a pilot study, both the sum of their concentrations, measured by western blot, and the relative abundance pattern, measured by mass spectrometry, were different in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients compared to healthy

The common swift (Apus apus) is adapted to an aerial lifestyle, where food and nest material are captured in the air. Observations have prompted scientists to hypothesize that swifts stay airborne for their entire non-breeding period [1, 2], including migration into sub-Saharan Africa [3–5]. It is mainly juvenile common swifts that occasionally roost in trees or buildings before autumn migration w

Background: Indications for negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT) in vascular surgical patients are expanding. The aim of this review was to outline the evidence for NPWT on open and closed wounds. Methods: A PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library search from 2007 to June 2016 was performed combining the medical subject headings terms 'wound infection', 'abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA)', 'fasciotomy