The Mollisols from the Pampas Region of Argentina have been described as presenting different compactability behaviors under agricultural systems. The purpose of this study was to provide information on the inherent soil factors related to the susceptibility to compaction. Total organic carbon (TOC), texture (CLAY, SILT, SAND), water retention at 0.33 kPa (WR), Proctor maximum bulk density (BDM...

This paper aims to introduce System Dynamics (SD) in applying Drum Buffer Rope (DBR) methodology of Theory of Constraints (TOC) in a three-stage flow shop system that produces a single product. To the best of our knowledge, although there are a lot of TOC applications using discrete simulation in production scheduling with DBR methodology, there are not any TOC application of DBR methodology in...

We evaluated the effects of alpha-Toc on surface expression of CD11b/CD18 on polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) stimulated with N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP) and oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL). Incubation of PMN with fMLP (1 microM) or oxLDL (100 microg/mL) increased CD11b/CD18 expression; pretreatment with alpha-Toc reduced in a dose-dependent manner. PMN obtained fr...

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a powerful new management philosophy that recognizes system constraints limit the performance of a system and proposes a set of concepts to manage the constraints. TOC management philosophy (i) suggests the goal of an organization is to make money without violating certain necessary conditions such as customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction and securit...

BACKGROUND In current practice, patients scheduled for radiotherapy are treated according to 'rigid' protocols with predefined dose prescriptions that do not consider risk-taking preferences of individuals. The therapeutic operating characteristic (TOC) graph is applied as a decision-aid to assess the trade-off between treatment benefit and morbidity to facilitate dose prescription customisatio...

UNLABELLED In this investigation, the efficacy of scintigraphy using (99m)Tc-labeled hydrazinonicotinyl-Tyr3-octreotide (HYNIC-TOC) in the evaluation of extraadrenal pheochromocytoma was assessed and compared with (131)I-labeled metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) imaging. METHODS Ninety-seven patients who were suspected of having pheochromocytoma but showed no definite adrenal abnormalities on CT...

Ferulic acid (FA) and tocopherol (Toc) loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) were prepared by a hot homogenisation method. The particle size distribution, zeta potential and melting behaviour of the SLN as well as the stability, encapsulation efficiency and radical scavenging activity of FA and Toc in the SLN were analysed. The different formulations containing up to 2.8 mg g-1 of FA or Toc we...

BACKGROUND There is little practical guidance on how contextually relevant mental healthcare plans (MHCPs) can be developed in low-resource settings. AIMS To describe how theory of change (ToC) was used to plan the development and evaluation of MHCPs as part of the PRogramme for Improving Mental health carE (PRIME). METHOD ToC development occurred in three stages: (a) development of a cross...

The objective of this work is to analyze the temporal and spatial variability of the total ozone column (TOC) trends over the Yangtze River Delta, the most populated region in China, during the last 35 years (1978–2013) using remote sensing-derived TOC data. Due to the lack of continuous and well-covered ground-based TOC measurements, little is known about the Yangtze River Delta. TOC data deri...

BACKGROUND The Theory of Change (ToC) approach has been used to develop and evaluate complex health initiatives in a participatory way in high income countries. Little is known about its use to develop mental health care plans in low and middle income countries where mental health services remain inadequate. AIMS ToC workshops were held as part of formative phase of the Programme for Improvin...