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The aim of this paper is to present a new approach to the management of uncertain lumpy demand. After providing a comprehensive review of the related literature, a new model is introduced, with the objective of improving the firm's ability to cope with lumpy orders. Its innovative principle relies on the exploitation of the information collected by the Sales Department during the negotiation process; such information helps to minimize the impact of the lumpy orders, thus reducing the need for oversized production capacity and/or working capital. An analytical model is presented to solve the trade-off between anticipating the production as soon as the order negotiation starts (thus risking production with no final order) and waiting until negotiation ends (thus risking a low service level due to the shorter time available to respond to the lumpy order): the right balance is found by keeping the right amount of stocks and of overcapacity. The model described turns out to be simple and easy to implement, since its informative needs consist of data usually available within the company, although often not exploited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clostridium difficile causes antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and pseudomembranous colitis. The main virulence factors of C. difficile are the toxins A (TcdA) and B (TcdB). A third toxin, binary toxin (CDT), which pathogenetic role had been remained largely overlooked until few years ago, nowadays have been detected in 5%-23% of strains. C. difficile has spread around world. Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is one of the most common health-care associated infections and a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among older adult hospitalized patients. Diagnosis of CDI is often difficult and has a substantial impact on the management of patients with disease. It is usually based on a clinical history of recent antimicrobial usage and diarrhoea in combination with laboratory tests. Although the conventional methods are crucial for the diagnosis and the subsequent treatment of CDI, a timely laboratory diagnosis is essential for the detection of toxigenic strains providing either to an effective and immediately treatment or to the prevention of further disease transmission. In this review we provide general recommendations for testing of samples collected from patients with suspected CDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at presenting a new approach to the management of uncertain lumpy demand. After providing a comprehensive review of the related literature, a new approach is introduced here in order to reduce the need for stocks when coping with uncertain lumpy demand. The basic idea of this approach is that of exploiting available information within the company or within the company's supply chain, so as to minimize the impact of lumpy orders and reduce the need for stocks. Two theoretical models are presented here to address the trade-off between the benefit of the lower inventory level and the cost of the higher risk related to the anticipatory use of uncertain information: the first model treats the lumpy order quantity as deterministic, while the arrival of the order is considered as a stochastic event; the second model deals with the opposite situation, when the arrival of a lumpy order is certain, while the order quantity is uncertain. These new models turn out to have a relevant interpretative power, and seem useful in real-life management of lumpy demand, since they can boost running capital productivity resorting to information usually available within or around the company, although often not exploited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlabelled: A case of Bartonella henselae bacteraemia is reported in an immunocompetent 8-year-old boy with cat-scratch disease. Serology to B. henselae, diagnosed by polymerase chain reaction, was positive. DNA was extracted from peripheral whole blood and amplified with specific primers targeting the htrA gene of B. henselae. A non-isotopic hybridization assay with a species-specific oligonucleotide probe was used to detect the amplified product.Conclusion: The polymerase chain reaction can be used for the rapid laboratory diagnosis of bacteraemia in cat-scratch disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]