A final adjustment for staff allocation under environmental uncertainty

Through understanding the relationships between the previous day's (Sunday) demand and the remaining days' demand, a prediction model can be constructed. The staff level can be determined based on this prediction model. This model can also be applied in different hospital units or a staff environment other than hospitals.     

A stochastic model for determining the necessary staff level in a service industry

Determining sufficient staff levels and providing quality, economical and efficient service is a problem that is difficult for some staffing managers to solve. The objectives in this paper are to derive a stochastic model for determining the necessary staff levels in various service environments such as hospitals, banks, or in manufacturing settings where the demand for a good staff is erratic. In order to assess the proper staff levels, an equation must be used which involves previous service demand hours that are considered as a distribution integrated within the statistical capability scale distribution. The most important property of this staffing model is that the results are independent of the mix of the jobs, the variation of the in-service time for jobs, and the stationary or nonstationary job arrival rate.     

Conditional reduction of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 replication by a gain-of-herpes simplex virus 1 thymidine kinase function.

The development of an effective vaccine for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) would be a major advance toward controlling the AIDS pandemic. Several disparate strategies for a safe and effective HIV vaccine have been proposed. Recent data suggest that loss-of-function live-attenuated virus could be a safe lentivirus vaccine. Here, we propose a gain-of-function approach that can complement loss-of-function in enhancing the safety profile of a live-attenuated virus. We describe an example in which ganciclovir (GCV) was used to treat effectively nef(-)HIV-1 engineered to express herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) thymidine kinase (TK). This treatment was found to be highly efficient in controlling HIV-1 spread in tissue culture and in a small animal (hu-PBL-SCID) model. We demonstrate that one distinct advantage of GCV-HSV-TK treatment is the elimination of integrated proviruses, a goal not easily achieved with other antiretrovirals.     

A small element from the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus genome makes human immunodeficiency virus type 1 expression and replication Rev-independent.

Replication of human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1) is dependent on the viral Rev protein. This protein acts in concert withthe cis-acting rev-responsive element present in intron-containing RNAs tofacilitate nuclear export of these RNAs. Here we show that a cis-acting219-nucleotide sequence from an unrelated "simple" retrovirus,Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (MPMV), enables Rev-independent HIV-1 replication.This sequence is present in an untranslated region near the 3' end of theMPMV genome. The MPMV element is also able to efficiently substitute for Rev inexpression of Gag/Pol and Env proteins from subgenomic constructs. Wehypothesize that the MPMV element functions by interacting with a cellularfactor that plays a role in mRNA transport analogous to that of the Rev protein.It might be possible to exploit this element in the development of an HIVvaccine.     

Biological applications of hammerhead ribozymes as anti-viral molecules

Ribozymes are catalytic RNAs that can cleave substrate RNAs in a sequence specific manner. Here we survey, in brief, the structure of hammerhead and hairpin ribozymes and discuss their applications as molecular antiviral molecules for HIV-1.     

MicroRNAs and Cancer Therapeutics

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small physiological non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression through an RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism. The expression of miRNAs is tightly controlled both spatially and temporally. Aberrant miRNA expression has been correlated with various cancers. Recent findings suggest that some miRNAs can function as tumor suppressors or oncogenes. In model experiments, the cancer phenotype of some cells can be reverted to normal when the cells are treated with miRNA mimics or inhibitors. Here, we discuss in brief the potential utility of miRNA-based cancer therapy as well as the current limitations thwarting their useful clinical application.     

MAD1 (mitotic arrest deficiency 1) is a candidate for a tumor suppressor gene in human stomach

Mitotic arrest deficiency 1 (MAD1) is a component of the spindle checkpoint factors that monitor fidelity of chromosomal segregation. We previously confirmed that the level of MAD1 protein was decreased in gastric carcinoma compared with non-tumoral mucosa by conducting proteome-based analyses (Nishigaki R, Osaki M, Hiratsuka M, Toda T, Murakami K, Jeang KT, Ito H, Inoue T, Oshimura M, Proteomics 5:3205–3213, 29). In this study, an immunohistochemical analysis was performed to examine MAD1 expression histologically in gastric mucosa and tumor. MAD1 was detected in the supranuclear portion of normal epithelial, intestinal metaplasia, and adenoma cells, but its expression was not restricted to any specific area in carcinoma cells. Lower levels of expression were noted in 16 (47.1%) of 34 adenomas and in 52 (60.5%) of 86 carcinomas, whereas all normal mucosae and intestinal metaplasias were grouped into cases with higher level of expression. Moreover, the expression of MAD1 was significantly lower in advanced carcinomas than early carcinomas and in intestinal than diffuse type, respectively (P < 0.05). Exogenous expression of wild-type MAD1, but not the mutant MAD1, inhibited cell proliferation and resulted in G2/M accumulation in MKN-1, a gastric carcinoma cell line. Taken together, our findings suggest that the MAD1 gene could be a candidate tumor suppressor gene and that down-regulation of MAD1 expression contribute to tumorigenesis in human stomach.     

Inpatient admission system model using SIMAN software

In this paper a simulation model is developed as a tool to describe the behavior of the inpatient admission system in a hospital. Due to difficulties involved in the self-development or vendor approach to model such a complex system, the author uses SIMAN software to develop a simulation model for the inpatient admission system. To most hospitals, advantages are gained in terms of reduced purchasing and maintenance cost, and ease of use, as this software can run on any personal computer.     

Replication of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 from Entry to Exit

It has been 25 years since the recognition of the disease acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in homosexual men in the United States. Much molecular progress in understanding the replication of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been advanced. Here, we review in a nonexhaustive manner our current knowledge of the replication of HIV-1 inside human cells from entry to exit of the virus.