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Total System (total + system)
Selected AbstractsSeeing America,diary of a drug-focused study tour made in 1967ADDICTION, Issue 6 2010Griffith Edwards ABSTRACT In 1965 the British government was forced to admit that the country had an escalating heroin problem, with the supply coming mainly from prescribing by private practitioners. Within the official responses to what was seen at that time as a very worrying public health situation was the decision to fund the setting-up of the Addiction Research Unit (ARU) at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. The US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) generously sponsored a study tour for the nominated director of the ARU shortly before the opening of the British research centre. Extensive contemporaneous diary notes of a visit included contact with administrators, researchers, clinicians, parish priests, narcotic agents and addicts themselves. From a mass of often conflicting advice, some insights could be derived. In particular, these included the need for an awareness of any country's way of dealing with drug problems as a dynamic, multi-factorial total system,a holistic ,national response'. A further conclusion was to see policy itself as a complex subject for analysis: drug policy should be as much an issue for research as drug taking. Besides these broad conclusions, the experience provided many specific leads to development of a British addiction research programme, and fostered professional friendships of immeasurable worth. [source] Candidate cis -elements for human renin gene expression in the promoter regionJOURNAL OF CELLULAR BIOCHEMISTRY, Issue 2 2004Tadashi Konoshita Abstract The regulation of renin gene expression, the rate-limiting enzyme of the system, is thought to be fundamental to the total system. Previously, we mapped six putative cis -elements in the promoter region of the human renin gene with nuclear proteins from human chorionic cells and human renal cortex by DNase I protection assay (footprint A,F). Each footprint contains Ets motif like site (A), HOXñPBX recognition sequence (B), unknown sequence as DNA binding consensus (C), CRE (D), COUP-TFII (ARP-1) motif like site (E), and AGE3 like site (F). Footprint D has been characterized by means of functional studies as the genuine human renin gene CRE interacting with CREB in cooperation with the site of footprint B. To obtain further clues to the specific expression in the promoter region, these putative cis -elements were conducted to a consensus-specific binding assay to compare renin-producing and non-renin-producing cells by EMSA and electromobility super-shift assay. Different sequence-specific DNA/protein binding was obtained among the different cell lines with footprint B site, with COUP-TFII (ARP-1) motif like site and possibly with footprint F site. The results implicate these putative cis -elements and each corresponding trans -factor in the specific expression of the human renin gene in the promoter region. Further functional characterization of these elements would provide important data for a better understanding of human renin gene expression. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] T-AKE: Acquiring the Environmentally Sound Ship of the 21st CenturyNAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2006Cdr. Stephen P. Markle USN (Ret.) P.E. Department of Defense (DoD) program managers are increasingly challenged with the difficulties of balancing the risks associated with cost, schedule, and performance in an era of intense competition for increasingly scarce resources. Requirements associated with environmental, safety, and health (ESH), in the context of thirty to forty-year service lives, have not been consistently, or in some cases adequately, addressed in DoD programs. Environmental protection (EP) requirements generally do not fit the normal requirements generation and product synthesis model typically applied to weapon system development. As with all requirements, early identification is the key to integration into the total system. Recognition that EP requirements must be integrated at program conception led to development of the ESH Integration Model by the U.S. Navy Lewis and Clark (T-AKE) Auxiliary Cargo Ammunition Ship Program. Institutionalization of this model has enabled the T-AKE Program to establish EP performance requirements for the twelve-ship class that substantially reduce the environmental footprint of the Navy. Compared to the fifteen ships that it will be replacing, T-AKE will require fifty percent less manning and reduce waste streams by seventy percent enabling an annual life cycle cost savings of $5M in ashore waste disposal costs. The T-AKE Program has been the first to achieve the Chief of Naval Operations vision for the "Environmentally Sound Warship of the 21st Century" through design integration of EP requirements. [source] Photovoltaic thin-film technology based on hydrogenated amorphous siliconPROGRESS IN PHOTOVOLTAICS: RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS, Issue 2 2002P. Lechner Solar modules based on amorphous silicon combine a number of properties that lead to a wide range of attractive applications, from watch dials to roof integration and semitransparent insulating glazing. The specificities of manufacturing are described, and it can be shown that they ultimately render competitive manufacturing costs and hence total system costs sufficiently low to offset the drawback of lower efficiencies. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Risk Management in Total System Ship DesignNAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL, Issue 4 2000C. F. Barker P.E. ABSTRACT Ships are being designed with an increased emphasis on reduced life cycle costs, obtained through means such as reduced crew size, increased automation, and adoption of commercial practices. Ship cost is closely related to the likelihood and consequence of future events, or risk. Ship designers must have tools to assess and manage risks to obtain cost-effective designs. Risk assumptions were built into prescriptive standards, but performance standards are now being used. Ships systems built to varying degrees of acceptable risk are not cost-effective. Underdesigns and overdesigns will result, and the ship ends up only as strong as its "weakest link." The authors propose that the top-down risk management methodology that is currently used for commercial ships be considered for use by naval ship designers in conjunction with both the traditional ship design spiral and the total systems ship design concept. The IMO-endorsed formal safety assessment (FSA) methodology was designed for marine systems. By adopting the FSA approach the Navy will benefit from existing lessons-learned, and will have a smoother transition into the application of commercial standards when the ship is built. [source] Plant management research: status and what it can offer to address challenges and limitationsAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF GRAPE AND WINE RESEARCH, Issue 2010P.R. CLINGELEFFER Abstract Seasonal fluctuations in yield, grape composition and wine attributes, largely driven by variable climatic conditions, are major challenges for the wine industry aiming to meet consumer expectations for consistent supply, wine style and product quality. This paper will address known causes for this variability and identify management techniques, together with their limitations, that offer potential to modulate these responses. Results will be presented from research studies, conducted over a number of seasons, which link vineyard management practices with fruit composition and wine assessments. They show that there is potential to develop integrated systems to stabilise yield, fruit composition and wine quality attributes across seasons. These techniques include lighter pruning, deficit irrigation techniques and adoption of low-moderate vigour rootstocks which lead to reduced shoot vigour and the development of open canopies and small bunches with small berries, with enhanced colour, phenolics and sensory appeal; application of mechanical and chemical crop thinning techniques for yield stabilisation and promotion of early ripeness, colour and flavour development. However, the results also show that variability between seasons in many cases is much larger than can be achieved by modifying management practices. Hence, opportunities to use management practices to completely reduce the seasonal variability, particularly with respect to grape composition and wine attributes, factors largely affected by climatic conditions during berry development, may be limited. There exists significant potential in the longer term to use new varieties and rootstocks better adapted to variable and changing climatic conditions. It can be concluded that vineyard practices can be modified to stabilise yield, grape composition and wine attributes to varying degrees and hence, minimise the impact of variability in climatic conditions from season to season. In the longer term, the adoption of new varieties together with new rootstocks adapted to higher temperatures and limited water supply will assist the wine industry to cope with impacts of climate variability and change and address ever changing consumer expectations. A total systems approach to vineyard management offers potential to modulate seasonal fluctuations in yield, grape composition and wine quality attributes with significant benefit for an industry. [source] | ||||||||||