AIMS To evaluate the clinical impact of early administration of glycoprotein IIb/IIIa agents (IIb/IIIa agents) in the context of a dedicated hub and spoke network allowing very prompt pharmacological/mechanical interventions. METHODS AND RESULTS Using a prospective database, we conducted a cohort study of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients (n = 1124) undergoing primary percut...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate cross-sectional patient distribution and standardised 30-day mortality in the intensive care units (ICU) of an inclusive hub and spoke trauma system. SETTING ICUs of the Integrated System for Trauma Patient Care (SIAT) of Emilia-Romagna, an Italian region with a population of approximately 4.5 million. PARTICIPANTS 5300 patients with an Injury Severity Score (ISS) >15 ...

This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) employing a metaheuristic algorithm called BoneRoute, for solving the open vehicle routing problem (OVRP). The OVRP deals with the problem of finding a set of vehicle routes, for a fleet of capacitated vehicles to satisfy the delivery requirements of customers, without returning to the distribution centre. The computational performance of the ...

This paper presents a branch–and–price algorithm for the Capacitated Hub Location Problem with Single Assignment, in which Lagrangean relaxation is used to obtain tight lower bounds of the Restricted Master Problem (RPM). It is shown how to solve the pricing problem for finding new columns to be added to the RMP, or for proving that the lower bound of the current RMP is valid. Also, a lower bou...

In contrast to p-hub problems with a summation objective (p-hub median), minmax hub problems (p-hub center) have not attained much attention in the literature. In this paper, we give a polyhedral analysis of the uncapacitated single allocation p-hub center problem (USApHCP). The analysis will be based on a radius formulation which currently yields the most efficient solution procedures. We show...

In this study, buffalo spermatozoa were in-vitro capacitated and acrosome reacted using modified Tyrode’s bicarbonatebuffered medium (sp-TALP media). Lipids were extracted from freshly ejaculated, in-vitro capacitated and acrosome reacted buffalo spermatozoa. The total lipid content of freshly ejaculated spermatozoa (171.5±2.90 μg/108 cells), capacitated spermatozoa (128.2±3.29 μg/108 cells) an...

This paper considers the locational effects of geographically discriminatory trade policy. A preferential move towards a free trade area pulls industry into the integrating countries. Input-output links between imperfectly competitive firms amplify this effect and, when trade barriers fall below some critical level, may lead to agglomeration with some member countries gaining industry at the ex...

In this paper, a comparison concerning electric traction drives for passenger cars is given. Electric traction drives presently available on the market are analyzed and future developments are described. Two main classes of such drives are presented: centre drives (like presently known from hybrid cars) and wheel-hub drives (which are still in the research and development phase). The wheel-hub ...

The capacitated single assignment hub location problem with modular link capacities is a variant of the classical hub location problem in which the cost of using edges is not linear but stepwise, and the hubs are restricted in terms of transit capacity rather than in the incoming traffic. This problem was introduced by Yaman and Carello in [18] and treated by a branch-and-cut and a tabu search ...