The paper focuses on the rapid development of the digital culture and the challenges it imposes to human creativity. It analyses e-learning, digital entertainment, digital art and the issues of creativity and improvisation. It also presents a classification of the levels in the creative structure including hardware and software tools; product developers; creators and end users. Special attentio...

Today’s automation machines are becoming more motion-centric than ever before. The number of controlled axes per machine has increased significantly over the past 10 years and will continue to increase. Motion has become the most critical process on the machine. Machines are going from using complex mechanical cams with one or two motors to multi-axis servo motor systems. This new generation of...

This paper provides a novel explanation for the use of supply chain intermediaries such as Li & Fung Ltd.. We find that even in the absence of the well-known transactional and informational advantages of mediation, intermediaries improve supply chain performance. In particular, intermediaries facilitate responsive adaptation of the buyers’ supplier base to their changing needs while simultaneou...

Today’s automation machines are becoming more motion-centric than ever before. The number of controlled axes per machine has increased significantly over the past 10 years and will continue to increase. Motion has become the most critical process on the machine. Machines are going from using complex mechanical cams with one or two motors to multi-axis servo motor systems. This new generation of...

Various strategies have been developed to exploit plants as bioreactors for the production of pharmaceutical antibodies, to engineer antibody-mediated pathogen resistance or to alter the plant phenotype by immunomodulation. Recent research developments focus on the fine-tuning of expression systems and the detailed characterisation of recombinant products, including the implications of plant-sp...

In recent years, so-called "effectiveness studies," also called "real-world studies" or "pragmatic trials," have gained increasing importance in the context of evidence-based medicine. These studies follow less restrictive methodological standards than phase III studies in terms of patient selection, comedication, and other design issues, and their results should therefore be better generalizab...

The merits and drawbacks of privatization have been subjects of considerable debate among business-people, city leaders, and public employees alike. Indeed, each element of privatization—from its apparent cost-saving properties to its possible negative impact on minority workers—provokes strong reaction. About the only thing that everyone can agree on is that the trend has been enormously benef...

Possibly the most daunting task faced by critical care medical personnel are emergency intubations. Often times you are presented with a patient you are unfamiliar with who needs to be intubated in order to increase their chances of survival. In an attempt to cut costs many rural hospitals staff their emergency rooms with personnel whose intubation skills may be marginal at best and an experien...

In some competitive situations under uncertainty, less risk averse competitors have an advantage over more risk averse opponents. Private information acquisition by the advantaged players diminishes this advantage by reducing the risk faced by their opponents in a Nash equilibrium. This tradeoff between risk advantages and informational advantages is examined in the context of a duopoly model w...

If we’re lucky, we get old. Physical and mental decline are negative hallmark associations of aging. Imagine being born blind and, as you approach middle age, waking up with the ability to see. In this issue of PLOS Genetics, Cornils, Maurya, and colleagues discover such a phenomenon: age-related suppression of ciliogenesis defects [1]. Cilia are microtubule-based organelles that protrude from ...