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Strong Demand (strong + demand)
Selected AbstractsJet fuel squeezed as gasoil demand boomsOIL AND ENERGY TRENDS, Issue 6 2005Article first published online: 15 JUN 200 As the US summer gasoline season begins (see 'The Month in Brief') it is not gasoline but middle distillate that is driving product prices in that country. Fears of a heating oil shortage next winter have pushed the price of heating oil above that of motor spirit. Diesel prices have been above those of gasoline for several weeks. Strong demand for diesel and heating oil is predicted for the rest of the year, and US refiners will have to try and structure their operations so as to maximize their output of these two fuels whilst still continuing to keep the world's largest gasoline market adequately supplied. The main effect of these attempts to squeeze more gasoline, diesel and heating oil from the crude oil barrel is likely to be experienced by the product that lies in the middle: jet kerosine. [source] ENDOSCOPIC SUBMUCOSAL DISSECTION IN THE UPPER GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT: PRESENT AND FUTURE VIEW OF EUROPEDIGESTIVE ENDOSCOPY, Issue 2009Horst Neuhaus In Western countries endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) has been widely accepted for treatment of early Barrett`s neoplasia and flat or depressed colorectal adenomas. In contrast endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is infrequently performed for several reasons. It seems to be difficult to overcome the learning curve of this difficult technique because of the low case volume of early gastric cancer. On the other hand ESD of esophageal or colorectal lesions is even more challenging and is considered to be inappropriate for learning. In addition the indication for esophageal or colorectal ESD is controversial in view of excellent results of the well established EMR technique which is less time-consuming and safer than ESD. A recent survey of leading Western endoscopy centers indicated the limited experience with ESD with a low number of cases for all potential indications. Only a few training courses have been established and the number of ongoing clinical studies is limited. Only 12 out of 340 published articles on "endoscopic mucosal dissection" were reported from Western countries. A better acceptance of ESD requires improvement of the technique to allow an easier, faster and safer approach. There is a strong demand for structured training courses and limitations of human cases to selected centers which participate in prospective trials. A close collaboration between Western and Asian centers is recommended for improvement of the ESD technique and its clinical application. [source] Tuning the Refractive Index of Polymers for Polymer Waveguides Using Nanoscaled Ceramics or Organic Dyes,ADVANCED ENGINEERING MATERIALS, Issue 1-2 2004J. Böhm Plastic Optical Fibers (POF) show advantageous properties like high flexibility and their cost advantage in comparison to glass fibers. The refractive indices of core and cladding have to be modified in order to get total reflectance. Thus, there is a strong demand for refractive index adjustable polymers with improved transmission properties in the visible and the NIR range. Inorganic nanosized particles or organic dyes homogeniously dispersed or solved in the polymer matrix allow a tailored increase or decrease of the refractive index of various polymers. [source] ,We didn't know it would get that bad': South Asian experiences of dementia and the service responseHEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 5 2003Alison Bowes BA PhD Abstract The aim of the present paper was to examine some views and experiences of dementia among older South Asian people, as well as their families and carers, and to explore central issues of service support. Data were collected in Scotland through interviews with 11 professionals working with South Asian people with dementia, and four case studies of South Asian people with a diagnosis of dementia, as well as their families and carers. The case studies demonstrated overwhelmingly negative experiences of dementia, with poor quality of life, desperate needs for support, lack of access to appropriate services, little knowledge of dementia, and isolation from community and family life. The interviews with professionals described a strong demand for services, a need to develop awareness and knowledge about dementia in South Asian communities, and a need to promote more culturally sensitive, individually responsive services. Similarities between South Asian people and the non-South Asian population include stress on carers, increasing isolation, problematic diagnostic practices, lack of knowledge and demand for service support. Differences include limited use of non-National Health Service (NHS) support, dealing with later stages of dementia at home, particularly negative views about residential care, culturally based attitudinal differences and use of the term ,dementia' in English as neutral rather than stigmatising. The present authors suggest that there is little knowledge and experience of dementia in South Asian communities, as well as restricted access to appropriate services, despite the efforts of voluntary sector and NHS special projects. There is demand for services, especially at home. Services need to develop individual responsiveness for effective working in a diverse society. [source] A new data model for XML databasesINTELLIGENT SYSTEMS IN ACCOUNTING, FINANCE & MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2002Richard Ho The widespread activity involving the Internet and the Web causes large amounts of electronic data to be generated every day. This includes, in particular, semi-structured textual data such as electronic documents, computer programs, log files, transaction records, literature citations, and emails. Storing and manipulating the data thus produced has proven difficult. As conventional DBMSs are not suitable for handling semi-structured data, there is a strong demand for systems that are capable of handling large volumes of complex data in an efficient and reliable way. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) provides such solution. In this paper, we present the concept of a ,vertical view model' and its uses as a mapping mechanism for converting complex XML data to relational database tables, and as a standalone data model for storing complex XML data. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Is prior performance priced through closed-end fund discounts?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FINANCE & ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2010Michael Bleaney Abstract In open-end mutual funds (unit trusts), there is a strong positive cross-sectional relationship between net inflows to individual funds and past performance, as if investors attributed performance to managerial skill. Performance shows only very weak persistence, however, so at first sight investors do not appear to gain anything by responding to past performance information. This behaviour can be explained by the fact that past performance is effectively unpriced in the unit trust market, since management fees are unresponsive to demand. If investors believe that there is a non-zero probability that future performance will turn out to be positively correlated with past performance (i.e. that there is an element of managerial skill in performance), but a zero probability that this correlation will be negative, it is rational to prefer funds with better past performance when performance is not priced. In other words, it costs nothing to insure against the possibility of some managerial skill effect. If this explanation of the flow,performance relationship in unit trusts is correct, one would expect the relationship between investor demand and past fund performance to be much weaker if past performance were to be priced. We test this hypothesis in the market for closed-end funds (investment trusts). Because closed-end funds do not trade at net asset value, but at a price determined in the market, strong demand will raise the ratio of price to net asset value (known as the premium). Since it is well established that premiums are mean-reverting, future shareholder returns on funds currently on high premiums tend to be depressed by the reversion of the premium to the mean. In the closed-end fund market, as for open-end funds, there is little evidence of performance persistence, and therefore, to the extent that funds with good past performance are pushed to higher premiums, the expected return on them is less than on the average fund. This implicit pricing mechanism should mean that demand is a declining function of the premium, so that, even if demand is an increasing function of past performance for a given premium, any effect on the premium itself will be muted. We test this hypothesis for closed-end funds traded in the US and the UK. We find that there is a statistically significant effect of past performance on the premium in both countries. However, consistent with the hypothesis, it has limited economic significance, since it represents only a small component of premium variability. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Plant photonics: application of optical coherence tomography to monitor defects and rots in onionLASER PHYSICS LETTERS, Issue 4 2010I.V. Meglinski Abstract The incidence of physiological and/or pathological defects in many fresh produce types is still unacceptably high and accounts for a large proportion of waste. With increasing interest in food security their remains strong demand in developing reliable and cost effective technologies for non-destructive screening of internal defects and rots, these being deemed unacceptable by consumers. It is well recognized that the internal defects and structure of turbid scattering media can be effectively visualized by using optical coherence tomography (OCT). In the present study, the high spatial resolution and advantages of OCT have been demonstrated for imaging the skins and outer laminae (concentric tissue layers) of intact whole onion bulbs with a view to non-invasively visualizing potential incidence/severity of internal defects. (© 2010 by Astro Ltd., Published exclusively by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA) [source] Effects of process parameters on the micro molding processPOLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE, Issue 9 2003J. Zhao The trend towards miniaturization has brought about strong demand for increasingly smaller precision-molded plastic components. In order to control metering accuracy and homogeneity of the very small quantities of melt in the micro molding process, new micro molding machines that use an injection system comprising a screw extruder and a plunger injection unit have been developed. By use of such injection systems, standard plastic granules can be handled by the screw extruder and melt accuracy can be achieved by the electrically driven injection plunger. The objective of this work is to investigate the effects of the process parameters on the micro molding process and part quality. A series of micro gears were molded using a polyoxymethylene resin in a set of statistically designed experiments. Micro component inspection, characterization, and data analysis work was carried out to study the molded gears. It was found that metering size and holding pressure time are the process parameters that have the most significant effects on part quality, and that the process is also significantly affected by the interaction of these two parameters. There is an optimum metering size range in which the hold pressure can act together with the metering size to properly fill micro mold cavities. [source] Peptide and protein quantification: A map of the minefieldPROTEINS: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND BIOINFORMATICS, Issue 4 2010Marc Vaudel Abstract The increasing popularity of gel-free proteomics technologies has created a strong demand for compatible quantitative analysis methods. As a result, a plethora of different techniques has been proposed to perform gel-free quantitative analysis of proteomics samples. Each of these methods comes with certain strengths and shortcomings, and they often are dedicated to a specific purpose. This review will present a brief overview of the main methods, organized by their underlying concepts, and will discuss the issues they raise with a focus on data processing. Finally, we will list the available software that can help with the data processing from quantitative experiments. We hope that this review will thus enable researchers to find the most appropriate method available for their research objectives, and can also serve as a basis for creating a reliable data processing strategy. [source] Chemistry meets proteomics: The use of chemical tagging reactions for MS-based proteomicsPROTEINS: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND BIOINFORMATICS, Issue 20 2006Alexander Leitner Dr. Abstract As proteomics matures from a purely descriptive to a function-oriented discipline of the life sciences, there is strong demand for novel methodologies that increase the depth of information that can be obtained from proteomic studies. MS has long played a central role for protein identification and characterization, often in combination with dedicated chemical modification reactions. Today, chemistry is helping to advance the field of proteomics in numerous ways. In this review, we focus on those methodologies that have a significant impact for the large-scale study of proteins and peptides. This includes approaches that allow the introduction of affinity tags for the enrichment of subclasses of peptides or proteins and strategies for in,vitro stable isotope labeling for quantification purposes, among others. Particular attention is given to the study of PTMs where recent advancements have been promising, but many interesting targets are not yet being addressed. [source] Making the biodiversity monitoring system sustainable: Design issues for large-scale monitoring systemsAUSTRAL ECOLOGY, Issue 1 2004IAN WATSON Abstract There is strong demand for information about the status of, and trends in, Australia's biodiversity. Almost inevitably, this demand for information has led to demand for a broad-scale monitoring system. However, the decision to embark on a monitoring system should only be made once it has been established that a monitoring system is the optimal way to inform management. We stress the need to invest resources in assessing whether a monitoring system is necessary before committing resources to the design and implementation of the system. Current debate associated with the design of a biodiversity monitoring system has similarities to the debate within the range management profession in the early 1970s. The experience with range monitoring shows that large-scale monitoring systems such as those being proposed will require considerable resources, recurrently expended into the distant future, but with only a limited ability to adapt to new demands. Those involved in any biodiversity monitoring system will need to understand the implications of investing in a long-term monitoring programme. Monitoring sustainability will only be possible if the monitoring system is itself sustainable. We discuss a number of issues that need to be addressed before the system is at all sustainable. These attributes are a mix of biophysical, social and institutional attributes and highlight the view that monitoring systems of the type being suggested comprise an unusual mixture of attributes not found in typical scientific activity. The present paper is not a technical manual, but rather considers some of the design issues associated with designing and implementing large-scale monitoring systems. [source] MotherSafe: Review of three years of counselling by an Australian teratology Information ServiceAUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Joy Marie LIM Background: MotherSafe was established in January 2000 at the Royal Hospital for Women as Australia's first ,purpose-built' Teratogen Information Service and since then has received over 75 000 calls regarding exposures during pregnancy and lactation. Aim: To describe the patterns of use of MotherSafe over a three-year period. Methods: Retrospective descriptive epidemiological study using data from the database established at MotherSafe. Records from all the calls logged at MotherSafe between January 2005 and December 2007 were analysed to determine total number of calls, demographic characteristics of callers, including age, caller category and postcode, reason for call, source of referral and type of exposure. Results: A total of 47 138 calls were recorded to the MotherSafe service from January 2005 to December 2007. The majority of calls were regarding exposures in pregnancy (55%) and breast-feeding (38%). Average age of patients was 32.3 years. Of the calls made, 81.9% (38 485 of 46 968) were by consumers (the pregnant or lactating woman herself or a relative). The most common primary exposure categories were: over-the-counter medications (11.3%), psychotropic medication (9.0%), herbal or vitamin products (8.2%), antibiotics (7.0%), gastrointestinal medications (6.8%) and topical products (6.6%). Forty per cent of callers enquired about multiple exposures. Conclusions: The utilisation of MotherSafe by consumers and general practitioners continues to increase, reflecting the strong demand for a teratogen counselling service that provides high-quality, evidence-based information on exposures during pregnancy and lactation. [source] Metal-Free Triazole Formation as a Tool for BioconjugationCHEMBIOCHEM, Issue 13 2007Sander S. van Berkel Who needs copper? There is a strong demand for ligation reactions that proceed spontaneously, selectively, and under physiological conditions. To meet these criteria, we used trifluoromethyl-substituted oxanorbornadienes in reactions with various azides, and achieved an elegant tandem [3+2] cycloaddition,retro-Diels,Alder reaction that forms stable 1,2,3-triazole-linked bioconjugates (see scheme). [source] | |||||||||||||||||||