Modelo de negocio C&C Distribuidores SAS, introducción de una nueva línea de negocio

C&C Distribuidores S.A.S con la implementación de esta nueva línea de negocio, tiene un futuro prometedor, en cuanto al funcionamiento y la estructuración financiera, esto se debe a que en el primer año la utilidad neta es de $87.440.027 y la rentabilidad bruta es del 12,93% anual. El proyecto alcanzara una TIR de 350,16% y un VPN de $ 216.408.893 millones de pesos. La inversión inicial requerida se recuperara en el primer año de operación. Para el segundo año de funcionamiento de la nueva estrategia, las ventas crecerán en un 13,49% y los costos de venta en un 11,33%. De igual forma para el tercer año las ventas aumentaran en un 10,92% y los costos de venta en un 8,95%, lo que significa que los objetivos planteados en cuento a proyección de ventas se cumplirán. El producto que representa el mayor número de unidades vendidas al año es el kit de manicure con 368.285 unidades, sin embargo el producto que mayor participación tiene en cuanto a la venta en pesos es la comercialización con $ 299.231.000 de pesos. La inversión inicial del proyecto es de $ 28.550.000 millones de pesos de los cuales $ 26.550.000 millones serán destinados a la compra de activos fijos y $ 2.000.000 millones al capital de trabajo. En el aspecto técnico el diagrama de procesos tiene en cuenta desde el momento en el que el cliente solicita el producto, hasta que se realiza una retroalimentación para verificar la calidad del servicio.

Disposable maps : ad hoc location sharing

The gathering of people in everyday life is intertwined with travelling to negotiated locations. As a result, mobile phones are often used to rearrange meetings when one or more participants are late or cannot make it on time. Our research is based on the hypothesis that the provision of location data can enhance the experience of people who are meeting each other in different locations. This paper presents work-in-progress on a novel approach to share one’s location data in real-time which is visualised on a web-based map in a privacy conscious way. Disposable Maps allows users to select contacts from their phone’s address book who then receive up-to-date location data. The utilisation of peer-to-peer notifications and the application of unique URLs for location storage and presentation enable location sharing whilst ensuring users’ location privacy. In contrast to other location sharing services like Google Latitude, Disposable Maps enables ad hoc location sharing to actively selected location receivers for a fixed period of time in a specific given situation. We present first insights from an initial application user test and show future work on the approach of disposable information allocation.

Daily disposable contact lens prescribing around the world

Daily disposable contact lenses were introduced into the market 16 years ago. Data that we have gathered from annual contact lens fitting surveys conducted in Australia, Canada, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the USA between 2000 and 2008 indicates an overall increase in daily disposable lens fitting during this period. Daily disposable lenses are especially popular in Japan, Norway and the UK. There is a trend for these lenses to be fitted on a part-time basis. Males are over-represented in daily disposable lens fitting—a trend that is especially evident in Canada. Daily disposable lens wearers are about two years younger than wearers of reusable lenses in Japan and The Netherlands. The convenience and health benefits of daily disposable lenses are expected to fuel continued growth in this sector.

An international survey of daily disposable contact lens prescribing

Purpose The aim was to determine the extent of daily disposable contact lens prescribing worldwide and to characterise the associated demographics and fitting patterns. Methods Up to 1,000 survey forms were sent to contact lens fitters in up to 40 countries between January and March every year for five consecutive years (2007 to 2011). Practitioners were asked to record data relating to the first 10 contact lens fits or refits performed after receiving the survey form. Survey data collected since 1996 were also analysed for seven nations to assess daily disposable lens fitting trends since that time. Results Data were collected in relation to 97,289 soft lens fits, of which 23,445 (24.1 per cent) were with daily disposable lenses and 73,170 (75.9 per cent) were with reusable lenses. Daily disposable lens prescribing ranged from 0.6 per cent of all soft lenses in Nepal to 66.2 per cent in Qatar. Compared with reusable lens fittings, daily disposable lens fittings can be characterised as follows: older age (30.0 ± 12.5 versus 29.3 ± 12.3 years for reusable lenses); males are over-represented; a greater proportion of new fits versus refits; 85.9 per cent hydrogel; lower proportion of toric and presbyopia designs and a higher proportion of part-time wear. There has been a continuous increase in daily disposable lens prescribing between 1996 and 2011. The proportion of daily disposable lens fits (as a function of all soft lens fits) is positively related to the gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita (r2 = 0.55, F = 46.8, p < 0.0001). Conclusions The greater convenience and other benefits of daily disposable lenses have resulted in this modality capturing significant market share. The contact lens field appears to be heading toward a true single-use-only, disposable lens market.

Disposable, stable media for reproducible surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Large numbers of identical and stable SE(R)RS [surface-enhanced (resonance) Raman]-active media, which are convenient to handle and manipulate but sufficiently inexpensive that they can be used once and then discarded, have been prepared by isolating nanoparticles from Ag and Au sols in hydrophilic polymer gels. The preparation simply involves mixing a suitable polymer with the sol to give a viscous suspension that can be coated onto a substrate and dried to form a hard translucent film. The films remain inactive until they are treated with aqueous analyte solution, which causes the film to swell and brings the analyte into contact with the active metal particles. The swollen films give strong SERS spectra which are effectively identical to those obtained from simple sols. The advantage of this method is that the dried polymers can be stored indefinitely before use and that they give a high degree of spectral reproducibility.

The potential for human exposure, direct and indirect, to the suspected carcinogenic triphenylmethane dye Brilliant Green from green paper towels

Triphenylmethanes - Malachite Green (MG), Crystal Violet (CV) and Brilliant Green (BC) are dyes with known genotoxic and carcinogenic properties. Apart from being illegally used in aquaculture for treatment of fish diseases they are also applied in industry such as paper production to colour paper towels widely used in hospitals, factories and other locations for hand drying after washing. The present study provides evidence that the triphenylmethane dye (BC) present in green paper towels can migrate through the skin even when the exposure time is short (30-300 s). The transfer of the dye from the towel to food (fish) was also studied and a high amount of colour was found to migrate during overnight exposure. The risk to humans associated with these two dye transfer studies was assessed using a 'margin of exposure approach' on the basis of the toxicological data available for the closely related dye MG and its metabolite Leucomalachite Green. The data indicated that the risk associated with the use of triphenylmethane containing paper towels is of a similar proportion to the risk associated with consumption of fish contaminated with these dyes due to the illegal application in aquaculture. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of contamination of used disposable contact lenses by Acanthamoeba

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the contamination of used disposable soft contact lenses with Acanthamoeba. Methods: We evaluated 51 consecutive disposable soft contact lens wearers in a prospective study. Before their check-up visits, patients were offered a free new contact lens in exchange for donating their old one. The used contact lenses (n=102) were then removed and placed in culture medium for Acanthamoeba. We subsequently investigated patterns of wear and hygiene habits. Results: The mean age of this population was 32.6±11.0 years. The average time of disposable soft contact lens wear was 13.7 hours per day. The contact lenses were disinfected daily with commercial solutions. Twenty-five (49.0%) subjects did not clean their lens cases properly. Acanthamoeba was not isolated from any of the 102 lenses. Conclusions: There were no cases of Acanthamoeba contamination in a small population of disposable soft contact lens wearers who regularly disinfected their lenses with standard commercially available contact lens solutions.

Evaluation of a simple disposable microband electrode device for amperometric gas sensing

We report a simple and facile methodology for constructing Pt (6.3 mm x 50 mu m) and Cu (6.3 mm x 30 mu m) annular microband electrodes for use in room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) and propose their use for amperometric gas sensing. The suitability of microband electrodes for use in electrochemical analysis was examined in experiments on two systems. The first system studied to validate the electrochemical responses of the annular microband electrode was decamethylferrocene (DmFc), as a stable internal reference probe commonly used in ionic liquids, in [Pmim][NTf2], where the diffusion coefficients of DmFc and DmFc(+) and the standard electron rate constant for the DmFc/DmFc(+) couple were determined through fitting chronoamperometric and cyclic voltammetric responses with relevant simulations. These values are independently compared with those collected from a commercially available Pt microdisc electrode with excellent agreement. The second system focuses on O-2 reduction in [Pmim][NTf2], which is used as a model for gas sensing. The diffusion coefficients of O-2 and O-2(-) and the electron transfer rate constant were again obtained using chronoamperometry and cyclic voltammetry, along with simulations. Results determined from the microbands are again consistent to those evaluated from the Pt microdisc electrode when compared these results from home-made microband and commercially available microdisc electrodes. These observations indicate that the fabricated annular microband electrodes are suitable for quantitative measurements. Further the successful use of the Cu electrodes in the O-2 system suggests a cheap disposable sensor for gas detection. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

AgriSense: Multichannel disposable sensors for animal health disease diagnostics

Rapid and sensitive detection of viral infections associated with Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) in live animals is recognized as key to minimizing the impact of this disease. ELISA-based testing is limited as it typically relies on the detection of a single viral antibody subtype within an individual test sample and testing is relatively slow and expensive. We have recently initiated a new project entitled AgriSense to develop a novel low-cost and label-free, integrated bimodal electronic biosensor system for BRD. The biosensor system will consist of an integrated multichannel thin-film-transistor biosensor and an electrochemical impedance spectroscopy biosensor, interfaced with PDMS-based microfluidic sample delivery channels. By using both sensors in tandem, nonspecific binding biomolecules must have the same mass to charge ratio as the target analyte to elicit equivalent responses from both sensors. The system will target simultaneous multiplexed sensing of the four primary viral agents involved in the development of BRD: bovine herpesvirus-1 (BHV-1), bovine parainfluenza virus-3 (BPIV-3), bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV), and bovine viral diarrhea (BVD). Optimized experimental conditions derived through model antigen-antibody studies will be applied to the detection of serological markers of BRD-related infections based on IgG interaction with a panel of sensor-immobilized viral proteins. This rapid, “cowside” multiplex sensor capability presents a major step forward in disease diagnosis, helping to ensure the integrity of the agri-food supply chain by reducing the risk of disease spread during animal movement and transport.

Comparison of Disposable Pipette Extraction and Dispersive Solid-Phase Extraction in the QuEChERS Method for Analysis of Pesticides in Strawberries

In this study, we sought to assess the applicability of GC–MS/MS for the identification and quantification of 36 pesticides in strawberry from integrated pest management (IPM) and organic farming (OF). Citrate versions of QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) using dispersive solid-phase extraction (d-SPE) and disposable pipette extraction (DPX) for cleanup were compared for pesticide extraction. For cleanup, a combination of MgSO4, primary secondary amine and C18 was used for both the versions. Significant differences were observed in recovery results between the two sample preparation versions (DPX and d-SPE). Overall, 86% of the pesticides achieved recoveries (three spiking levels 10, 50 and 200 µg/kg) in the range of 70–120%, with <13% RSD. The matrix effects were also evaluated in both the versions and in strawberries from different crop types. Although not evidencing significant differences between the two methodologies were observed, however, the DPX cleanup proved to be a faster technique and easy to execute. The results indicate that QuEChERS with d-SPE and DPX and GC–MS/MS analysis achieved reliable quantification and identification of 36 pesticide residues in strawberries from OF and IPM.

Disposable immunosensor using a simple method for oriented antibody immobilization for label-free real-time detection of an oxidative stress biomarker implicated in cancer diseases

This work proposes a novel approach for a suitable orientation of antibodies (Ab) on an immunosensing platform, applied here to the determination of 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8OHdG), a biomarker of oxidative stress that has been associated to chronic diseases, such as cancer. The anti-8OHdG was bound to an amine modified gold support through its Fc region after activation of its carboxylic functions. Non-oriented approaches of Ab binding to the platform were tested in parallel, in order to show that the presented methodology favored Ab/Ag affinity and immunodetection of the antigen. The immunosensor design was evaluated by quartz-crystal microbalance with dissipation, atomic force microscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and square-wave voltammetry. EIS was also a suitable technique to follow the analytical behavior of the device against 8OHdG. The affinity binding between 8OHdG and the antibody immobilized in the gold modified platform increased the charge transfer resistance across the electrochemical set-up. The observed behavior was linear from 0.02 to 7.0 ng/mL of 8OHdG concentrations. The interference from glucose, urea and creatinine was found negligible. An attempt of application to synthetic samples was also successfully conducted. Overall, the presented approach enabled the production of suitably oriented Abs over a gold platform by means of a much simpler process than other oriented-Ab binding approaches described in the literature, as far as we know, and was successful in terms of analytical features and sample application.

Detection of cardiac biomarker proteins using a disposable based on a molecularly imprinted polymer grafted onto graphite

A low-cost disposable was developed for rapid detection of the protein biomarker myoglobin (Myo) as a model analyte. A screen printed electrode was modified with a molecularly imprinted material grafted on a graphite support and incorporated in a matrix composed of poly(vinyl chloride) and the plasticizer o-nitrophenyloctyl ether. The protein-imprinted material (PIM) was produced by growing a reticulated polymer around a protein template. This is followed by radical polymerization of 4-styrenesulfonic acid, 2-aminoethyl methacrylate hydrochloride, and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate. The polymeric layer was then covalently bound to the graphitic support, and Myo was added during the imprinting stage to act as a template. Non-imprinted control materials (CM) were also prepared by omitting the Myo template. Morphological and structural analysis of PIM and CM by FTIR, Raman, and SEM/EDC microscopies confirmed the modification of the graphite support. The analytical performance of the SPE was assessed by square wave voltammetry. The average limit of detection is 0.79 μg of Myo per mL, and the slope is −0.193 ± 0.006 μA per decade. The SPE-CM cannot detect such low levels of Myo but gives a linear response at above 7.2 μg · mL−1, with a slope of −0.719 ± 0.02 μA per decade. Interference studies with hemoglobin, bovine serum albumin, creatinine, and sodium chloride demonstrated good selectivity for Myo. The method was successfully applied to the determination of Myo urine and is conceived to be a promising tool for screening Myo in point-of-care patients with ischemia.