Since 2004 the virtual agent Max is living at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum – a computer science museum. He is welcoming and entertaining visitors ten hours a day, six days a week, for seven years. This article brings together the experiences made by the staff of the museum, the scientists who created and maintained the installation, the visitors and the agent himself. It provides insights abo...

We have measured the in vivo protein turnover for the major calcium regulatory proteins of the sarcoplasmic reticulum from the skeletal muscle of young adult (7 months) and aged (28 months) Fischer 344 rats. From the time course of the incorporation and decay of protein-associated radioactivity after a pulse injection of [14C]leucine and correcting for leucine reutilization, in young rats, the ...

Evidence for a common endodermal stem cell has been derived from kinetic studies in mouse small intestine which indicate that the turnover characteristics of endocrine cells are similar to those of other cell lineages (columnar and goblet cells). We have used continuous tritiated thymidine labelling and peptide immunocytochemistry on resin embedded semithin sections, a combination of techniques...

Morphological and physiological alterations occur in the digestive system of weanling piglets, compromising the performance in subsequent phases. This experiment aimed at verifying the influence of glutamine, glutamate and nucleotides on the carbon turnover in the pancreas and liver of piglets weaned at 21 days of age. Four diets were evaluated: glutamine, glutamic acid or nucleotides-free diet...

A manufacturers in the U.S. supply chain exhibit significant differences in their days of supply of finished vehicles (average inventory divided by average daily sales rate). For example, from 1995 to 2004, Toyota consistently carried approximately 30 fewer days of supply than General Motors. This suggests that Toyota’s well-documented advantage in manufacturing efficiency, product design, and ...

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sensitometric characteristics of Ultraspeed, Ektaspeed Plus and Insight dental radiographic films using manual and automatic processing systems. METHODS: In this experimental invitro study, an aluminum step-wedge was used to construct characteristic curves for D-, Eand F-speed radiographic films (Kodak Eastman, Rochester, USA). A...

The Catalyst participation in the manual at home Total Recall Track was both limited and quick, a TREC submission of practicality over research. The group’s decision to participate in TREC was made three weeks, and data was not loaded until six days, before the final submission deadline. As a result and to reasonably simulate an expedited document review process, a number of shortcuts were take...

Footwear worn by U.S. military aircrew personnel provides inadequate levels of protection from a prolonged cold and wet exposure when compared with that wore by ground-based, combat troops. On June 2, 1995, a U.S. Air Force F-16 C aircraft was shot down by a mobile SA-6 surface-to-air missile over Bosnia-Herzegovina while conducting a routine NATO reconnaissance mission. The pilot survived the ...

Distortions are often seen in the angular distribution of echo-power from VHF wind-profiling radars, suggesting that thin stable layers, within the air flow, are distorted and tilted from horizontal. In vertical shear of the horizontal wind, the distribution of the layer tilt angles becomes skewed. A case study using six days of VHF radar data and synoptic charts above western Europe indicates ...