Additional Resource Requirements Research Articles

Leaping Together Toward Sustainable, Patient-Centered Innovation: The Value of a Multistakeholder Safe Haven for Accelerating System Change.

Leaping Together Toward Sustainable, Patient-Centered Innovation: The Value of a Multistakeholder Safe Haven for Accelerating System Change.

Scalable and distributed detection analysis on wormhole links in wireless sensor networks for networked systems

Recent surge in cyber physical systems (CPSs) which integrate cyber and physical worlds, increases security risks at both the surfaces. The wireless sensor communication network is one of the major components of the critical infrastructure in all networked systems including networked control systems and CPSs. As these systems support range of time and data sensitive applications, varying from health care to emergency services, to transport, and to environmental monitoring services, core sensor network component faces potential threats due to varying attacks, including wormhole attack that can cause damage to the control system in terms of data leakage, data dropping, and delayed delivery. It is also difficult to detect, as it requires neither nodes in the network to be compromised nor adversaries to acquire valid network identity to instigate such attacks. Many existing solutions in the literature to detect wormholes are based on node’s static location information, synchronization of clocks, use of additional hardware, such as antennas and GPS, and neighborhood and traffic information, which may lead to large energy consumption. In this paper, a scalable and distributed scheme which uses sequential probability ratio test is proposed, to avoid single point failures and to handle high mobility, with no additional resource requirements. It is observed that wormholes are detected using few packets and detection is faster with increasing mobility. The system is highly customizable as system parameters can be chosen to balance the speed and accuracy of detection. System overheads in terms of communication, computation, and storage aspects are analyzed and presented.

SORT 2014

SORT 2014

Extrinsic Information Modification in the Turbo Decoder by Exploiting Source Redundancies for HEVC Video Transmitted Over a Mobile Channel

An iterative turbo decoder-based cross layer error recovery scheme for compressed video is presented in this paper. The soft information exchanged between two convolutional decoders is reinforced both by channel coded parity and video compression syntactical information. An algorithm to identify the video frame boundaries in corrupted compressed sequences is formulated. This paper continues to propose algorithms to deduce the correct values for selected fields in the compressed stream. Modifying the turbo extrinsic information using these corrections acts as reinforcements in the turbo decoding iterative process. The optimal number of turbo iterations suitable for the proposed system model is derived using EXIT charts. Simulation results reveal that a transmission power saving of 2.28% can be achieved using the proposed methodology. Contrary to typical joint cross layer decoding schemes, the additional resource requirement is minimal, since the proposed decoding cycle does not involve the decompression function.

Feasibility of HIV point-of-care tests for resource-limited settings: challenges and solutions

Improved access to anti-retroviral therapy increases the need for affordable monitoring using assays such as CD4 and/or viral load in resource-limited settings. Barriers to accessing treatment, high rates of loss to initiation and poor retention in care are prompting the need to find alternatives to conventional centralized laboratory testing in certain countries. Strong advocacy has led to a rapidly expanding repertoire of point-of-care tests for HIV. point-of-care testing is not without its challenges: poor regulatory control, lack of guidelines, absence of quality monitoring and lack of industry standards for connectivity, to name a few. The management of HIV increasingly requires a multidisciplinary testing approach involving hematology, chemistry, and tests associated with the management of non-communicable diseases, thus added expertise is needed. This is further complicated by additional human resource requirements and the need for continuous training, a sustainable supply chain, and reimbursement strategies. It is clear that to ensure appropriate national implementation either in a tiered laboratory model or a total decentralized model, clear country-specific assessments need to be conducted.

Estimation of additional MRI resources needed in British Columbia for screening high-risk women for breast cancer.

51 Background: Screening women at high risk with MRI has been shown to detect breast cancer at an early stage. Therefore, MRI screening has been recommended in the UK and USA for women who are at a high risk of developing breast cancer. However, there is no information available in the province of British Columbia (BC) about the number of women who have a high risk of developing breast cancer. Therefore, we carried out a study to estimate the breast cancer risk distribution in three sample populations in BC using Tyrer-Cuzick (TC) risk prediction model so that additional resource requirement for MRI breast screening can be calculated. Methods: A survey questionnaire was designed based on the TC model, which includes family history, hormonal factors, and benign breast disease. Additional questions also include factors that are used in other models (Gail, Claus, and BCRAPRO) as well as factors that may be included in the future. Women were recruited by staff and volunteers at three screening mammography clinics: Kelowna, Victoria General Hospital, and BC Women’s Health Centre in Vancouver. The survey was available to women to complete on the web, by phone, or on paper. An online database was constructed to store and query the data. The 10-year risk of developing breast cancer for each woman was calculated using the Tyrer-Cuzick IBIS Risk Evaluator software and the risk distribution of the survey population was analyzed. Results: Data from 3,200 women recruited from three sites, gives a risk distribution showing 2.6% are at high risk of developing breast cancer, 31.2% are at moderate risk, and 66.2% are at low risk. Based on NICE guidelines (UK), high risk is defined as having a 10-year risk of greater than 8%, moderate risk as 3-8%, and low risk as less than 3%. Extrapolating this to the approximately 500,000 women who are eligible to attend for screening mammography in BC, 13,000 women are considered at high risk. Conclusions: Our results indicate that 2.6% of women ages 40-79 attending screening mammography in BC may have a very high risk of developing breast cancer based on personal and family history. Based on a 14-hour work day, three additional MRI scanners would be required to implement MRI screening for these high-risk women in BC.

Progress in autonomous fault recovery of field programmable gate arrays

The capabilities of current fault-handling techniques for Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) develop a descriptive classification ranging from simple passive techniques to robust dynamic methods. Fault-handling methods not requiring modification of the FPGA device architecture or user intervention to recover from faults are examined and evaluated against overhead-based and sustainability-based performance metrics such as additional resource requirements, throughput reduction, fault capacity, and fault coverage. This classification alongside these performance metrics forms a standard for confident comparisons.

Traffic-Oblivious Routing in the Hose Model

Routing traffic subject to hose model constraints has been of much recent research interest. Two-phase routing has been proposed as a mechanism for routing traffic in the hose model. It has desirable properties in being able to statically preconfigure the transport network and in being able to handle constraints imposed by specialized service overlays. In this paper, we investigate whether the desirable properties of two-phase routing come with any resource overhead compared to: 1) direct source-destination path routing; and 2) optimal scheme among the class of all schemes that are allowed to even make the routing dynamically dependent on the traffic matrix. In the pursuit of this endeavor, we achieve several milestones. First, we develop a polynomial-size linear programming (LP) formulation for maximum throughput routing of hose traffic along direct source-destination paths. Second, we develop a polynomial-size LP formulation for maximum throughput two-phase routing of hose traffic for a generalized version of the scheme proposed in our previous work. Third, we develop a polynomial-size LP formulation for minimum-cost two-phase routing of hose traffic for the generalized version of the scheme. We also give a second (simpler) LP formulation and fast combinatorial algorithm for this problem using an upper bound on the end-to-end traffic demand. Fourth, we prove that the throughput (and cost) of two-phase routing is within a factor of 2 of that of the optimal scheme. Using the polynomial-size LP formulations developed, we compare the throughput of two-phase routing to that of direct source-destination path routing and optimal scheme on actual Internet service provider topologies collected for the Rocketfuel project and three research network topologies. The throughput of two-phase routing matches that of direct source-destination path routing and is close to that of the optimal scheme on all evaluated topologies. We conclude that two-phase routing achieves its robustness to traffic variation without imposing any appreciable additional resource requirements over previous approaches.

Cost-Effectiveness of 21 Alternative Cervical Cancer Screening Strategies

The aim of this study is to assess the cost-effectiveness of 21 alternative cervical cancer screening (CCS) strategies. A cohort simulation model was developed to determine from a health systems perspective the cost-effectiveness of the 21 alternative CCS strategies that incorporated combinations of Papanicolaou's smear test (PAP), liquid-based cytology (LBC) or human papillomavirus deoxyribonucleic acid (HPV-DNA) testing. The model was calibrated to categorize total costs into four budgetary authorities: testing, physician, inpatient, and outpatient services. Within each category, alternative screening strategies were contrasted in terms of their cost impacts and the percent change calculated within each category. Epidemiologic data and costs were derived from administrative health databases. Estimates of test characteristics and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were derived from available literature. Three-year screening with PAP and HPV-DNA triage testing for women older than 30 years of age (3-year PAP+HPV+PAP-age) is less costly and more effective saving $16,078 per additional QALY gained. Although there was an associated net cost decrease of 4.2% driven by a reduction in testing and physician costs of 22.1% and 18.6%, respectively, there is a cost increase of 0.8% and 27.7% in inpatient and outpatient services, respectively. There is economic evidence to support adopting 3-year PAP+HPV+PAP-age. Budgetary resources can potentially be shifted from testing and physician services to fund the additional resource requirements for inpatient and outpatient services.

Valve surgery in octogenarians: does it prolong life?☆

Age-related degenerative heart-valve disease is a health issue in the present era. Octogenarians are frequently affected by concomitant diseases and, with the present lack of resources, the risk/benefit of valvular replacement therapy poses serious medical, economical and political challenge. We analysed the long-term survival of 346 octogenarians who underwent 352 operations between 1 January 1987 and 1 January 2009 and we compared it with the survival of the general population, matched for age, sex and operative year. The total follow-up was of 1352 years, maximum 15.7 years and was nearly complete except for a single foreigner. Heart diseases, concomitant pathologies, complications and actuarial survival of this study group were compared with 4649 younger counterparts, who received 5416 operations during the same time frame. Octogenarians were sorted by age, sex and operative year and the expected survival was calculated by applying US survival rate and added to the Kaplan-Meier plot for visual comparison. A total of 279 aortic, 38 mitral and 35 mitro-aortic valves were replaced or repaired using 357 bioprostheses, 18 mechanical prostheses, 12 reparative operations and 24 re-operations. A total of 75% of patients were younger than 84 years, 95% were younger than 87 years and 99% younger than 90 years. Sex prevalence was 215 female versus 131 male. Operative (30 days) mortality was 5.5% and overall survival was 84.3% at 1 year, 65.4% at 5 years, 27.3% at 10 years and 5.4% at 15 years. The expected survival of the age-, sex-, operative year-matched population was 26.9% at 10 years and 7.9% at 15 years. Female operative mortality was 5.9% and survival was respectively 86.3%, 70.2%, 27.5% and 9.1%, male mortality was 4.5% and survival was respectively 81%, 56.7%, 28.8% and 0% (p=0.16). Expected female survival was 30% at 10 years and 10% at 15 years versus 22% and 5.6%, respectively, in males. Six octogenarians underwent re-operation, with one death. Despite the highest prevalence of concomitant diseases and the requirement of additional resources for the detection and neutralisation of risk factors, heart-valve operations in octogenarians offer excellent results that compare favourably with the expected survival of the age-, sex- and operative year-matched population, particularly after primary operations.

Fractured-karst spring-flow protections: a case study in Jinan, China

Jinan Springs are an important historical heritage in China and have been well known for hundreds of years. Over-abstraction of groundwater in the Jinan area has seriously endangered the hydrological system of the springs, which have stopped flowing for significant periods of time in recent years. A three-dimensional finite-element model programmed primarily at the Hefei University of Technology has been developed to simulate groundwater level change in the large fractured-karst aquifer system in the Jinan Springs field. Various spring protection plans have been explored and their effects on the water table analyzed and compared. It was found that the present rate of groundwater withdrawal from the fractured-karst system in this area was inappropriate for spring protection. The simulated results suggest that decreasing the rate of groundwater pumping from 6.9×105 to 2.7×105 m3/day is needed to protect spring flows. Additional water resource requirements in that area may be met by use of surface water and recycled waste water.

Reducing the impact of the next influenza pandemic using household-based public health interventions.

BackgroundThe outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza in domestic poultry and wild birds has caused global concern over the possible evolution of a novel human strain [1]. If such a strain emerges, and is not controlled at source [2,3], a pandemic is likely to result. Health policy in most countries will then be focused on reducing morbidity and mortality.Methods and FindingsWe estimate the expected reduction in primary attack rates for different household-based interventions using a mathematical model of influenza transmission within and between households. We show that, for lower transmissibility strains [2,4], the combination of household-based quarantine, isolation of cases outside the household, and targeted prophylactic use of anti-virals will be highly effective and likely feasible across a range of plausible transmission scenarios. For example, for a basic reproductive number (the average number of people infected by a typically infectious individual in an otherwise susceptible population) of 1.8, assuming only 50% compliance, this combination could reduce the infection (symptomatic) attack rate from 74% (49%) to 40% (27%), requiring peak quarantine and isolation levels of 6.2% and 0.8% of the population, respectively, and an overall anti-viral stockpile of 3.9 doses per member of the population. Although contact tracing may be additionally effective, the resources required make it impractical in most scenarios.ConclusionsNational influenza pandemic preparedness plans currently focus on reducing the impact associated with a constant attack rate, rather than on reducing transmission. Our findings suggest that the additional benefits and resource requirements of household-based interventions in reducing average levels of transmission should also be considered, even when expected levels of compliance are only moderate.

Cutting-edge research by undergraduates on a shoestring?

This paper outlines an approach to helping mid-program undergraduates conduct cutting-edge research that can be incorporated into almost any program with no additional resource requirements. A key feature of this approach is a mechanism that allows for a thorough assessment of students' work, while still permitting what is typically classified as failure with respect to the production of research results. A brief review of some of the literature along with its benefits and concerns is presented first, followed by an outline of a model for implementing a student-centered research project that can be offered within the context of most traditional courses, at no extra costs in terms of manpower or funds. The focus of this approach is on helping students learn to be researchers, rather than furthering faculty members research agendas.

Does a thoracic epidural confer any additional benefit following video-assisted thoracoscopic pleurectomy for primary spontaneous pneumothorax?

Video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) bullectomy and apical pleurectomy has become the preferred procedure for recurrent or complicated primary spontaneous pneumothorax (SPN). Although thoracic epidural analgesia is the gold standard after open thoracic surgical procedures, its use in the management of minimally invasive procedures in this young population has not been extensively studied. From 1997 to 2003, a single surgeon performed 118 consecutive VATS pleurectomies for primary SPN. The perioperative course, analgesic requirements, hospital stay and long-term complications were compared for 22 (18%) patients in whom a patient-controlled thoracic epidural was used for analgesia and 96 (82%) patients who did not receive an epidural (parenteral opioids). A four-point verbal pain score (0-3) was recorded hourly in every patient at rest and on coughing following surgery. One patient required additional surgery for evacuation of haemothorax. There were no mortalities or other major complications in the series. Overall median hospital stay was 3 (range 1-10) days, the incidence of long-term pain at 3 months was 6%, and the long-term recurrence rate was 3%. Despite parenteral opioids being discontinued significantly earlier than epidurals, pain scores were similar in both groups. There were no significant differences in the duration of air-leaks, length of drainage, hospital stay, long-term pain and long-term paraesthesias between the two groups. Thoracic epidural analgesia does not contribute significantly to minimize neither perioperative nor long-term pain after VATS pleurectomy for primary SPN. The additional resource requirement in these patients is not justified.

A Study of Path Protection in Large-Scale Optical Networks

We consider the problem of designing a network of optical cross-connects (OXCs) which provides end-to-end lightpath services to large numbers of client nodes, under the requirement that the network will survive any single-link failure. Our main objective is to quantify the additional resource requirements of implementing path protection schemes over a network with no survivability properties. To this end, we present heuristic routing and wavelength assignment algorithms for dedicated path protection and two variants of shared path protection, and integrate them into the physical and logical topology design framework we developed in an earlier study. We apply our heuristics to networks with up to 1000 client nodes, with a number of lightpaths that is an order of magnitude greater than the number of clients, and for a wide range of values for system parameters such as the number of wavelengths per fiber, the number of optical transceivers per client node, and the number of ports per OXC. Our results provide insight into the relative resource requirements of dedicated and shared path protection schemes. We also find that, using shared path protection schemes, it is possible to build cost-effective survivable networks that provide rich connectivity among client nodes with only a modest additional amount of resources over a network with no survivability properties.

Calculation of the Cost of an Adequate Education in Kentucky: A Professional Judgment Approach

What is an adequate education and how much does it cost? In 1989, Kentucky’s State Supreme Court found the entire system of education unconstitutional-“all of its parts and parcels”. The Court called for all children to have access to an adequate education, one that is uniform and has as its goal the development of seven capacities, including: (i) “sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changing civilization . . . .and (vii) sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to enable public school students to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job market”. Now, over a decade later, key questions remain regarding whether these objectives have been fulfilled. This research is designed to calculate the cost of an adequate education by aligning resources to State standards, laws and objectives, using a professional judgment approach. Seven focus groups were convened for this purpose and the scholarly literature was reviewed to provide multiple inputs into study findings. The study produced a per pupil base cost for each of three prototype school districts and an total statewide cost, with the funding gap between existing revenue and the revenue needed for current operations of $1.097 billion per year (2001-02). Additional key resource requirements needed to achieve an adequate education, identified by professional judgment panels, include: (1) extending the school year for students and teachers, (2) adding voluntary half-day preschool for three and four year olds, and (3) raising teacher salaries. This increases the funding gap to $1.23 billion and suggests that significant new funding is required over time if the Commonwealth of Kentucky is to provide an adequate and equitable education of high quality for all children and youth as directed by the State Supreme Court.

Parallel machine scheduling with earliness–tardiness penalties and additional resource constraints

This research considers the problem of scheduling jobs on parallel machines with noncommon due dates and additional resource constraints. The objective is to minimize the total absolute deviation of job completion times about the corresponding due dates. All job processing times are assumed to be the same. This problem is motivated by restrictions that occur in the handling and processing of jobs in certain phases of semiconductor manufacturing and other production systems. We examine two special cases. For the first of these, the number of additional resource types and the resource requirements per job are arbitrary. The problem is formulated as a zero–one integer linear program and the Lagrangian relaxation approach is used to obtain tight lower bounds. In the second case, there exist one single type of additional resource and the resource requirements per job are zero or one. This problem is shown to be equivalent to the asymmetric assignment problem. Scope and purpose This paper considers the problem of scheduling jobs on parallel machines where jobs have different due dates and may require, besides machines, certain additional limited resources for their handling and processing. The objective is to minimize the total absolute deviation of job completion times about the corresponding due dates. This objective function is consistent with the just-in-time production philosophy which espouses the notion that earliness as well as tardiness should be penalized. Two problems are addressed. In the first of these, the number of different types of additional resources and resource requirements per job are arbitrary. The problem is formulated as a zero–one integer linear program and the Lagrangian relaxation approach is used. In the second problem, there exists one single type of additional resource and the resource requirements per job are zero or one. This problem can be reformulated as an assignment problem.

Revisiting the decision rule of cost–effectiveness analysis under certainty and uncertainty

The classical decision rule of cost–effectiveness analysis uses a threshold cost–effectiveness ratio as a cut-off point for resources allocation. One assumption of this decision rule is complete divisibility of health care programs. In this article, we argue that health care programs cannot be completely divisible since individuals are not divisible. Consequently, instead of a linear programming approach, an integer programming approach to budget allocation is suggested. The integer programming framework can be extended to include uncertainty in the analysis. An objective function (expected aggregate effects) is maximised subject to the constraint that the probability of exceeding the budget is limited to an arbitrary level (e.g., 0.05). In case the budget is exceeded, the objective function is penalised in order to account for the opportunity costs of the additional resource requirements.

WebGraph: a framework for managing and improving performance of dynamic Web content

The proportion of dynamic objects has been growing at a fast rate in the World Wide Web. In the e-commerce environment, these objects form the core of all web transactions. However, because of additional resource requirements and the changing nature of these objects, the performance of accessing dynamic Web contents has been observed to be poor in the current generation Web services. We propose a framework called WebGraph that helps in improving the response time for accessing dynamic objects. The WebGraph framework manages a graph for each of the Web pages. The nodes of the graph represent weblets, which are components of the Web pages that either stay static or change simultaneously. The edges of the graph define the inclusiveness of the weblets. Both the nodes and the edges have attributes that are used in managing the Web pages. Instead of recomputing and recreating the entire page, the node and edge attributes are used to update a subset of the weblets are then integrated to form the entire page. In addition to the performance benefits in terms of lower response time, the WebGraph framework facilitates Web caching, quality-of-service (QoS) support, load balancing, overload control, personalized services, and security for both dynamic as well as static Web pages. A detailed implementation methodology for the proposed framework is also described. We have implemented the WebGraph framework in an experimental setup and have measured the performance improvement in terms of server response time, throughput, and connection rate. The results demonstrate the feasibility and validates a subset of the advantages of the proposed framework.

Use of analytical performance models for system sizing and resource allocation in interactive video-on-demand systems employing data sharing techniques

In designing cost-effective video-on-demand (VOD) servers, efficient resource management and proper system sizing are of great importance. In addition to large storage and I/O bandwidth requirements, support of interactive VCR functionality imposes additional resource requirements on the VOD system in terms of storage space, as well as disk and network bandwidth. Previous works have used data sharing techniques (such as batching, buffering, and adaptive piggybacking) to reduce the I/O demand on the storage server. However, such data sharing techniques complicate the provision of VCR functions and diminish the amount of benefit that can be obtained from data sharing techniques. The main contribution of this paper is a simple, yet powerful, analytical modeling approach which allows for analysis, system sizing, resource allocation, and parameter setting for a fairly general class of data sharing techniques which are used in conjunction with the providing of VCR-type functionality. Using this mathematical model, we can determine the proper amount of resources to be allocated for normal playback as well as for service of VCR functionality requests while satisfying predefined system performance requirements. To illustrate the usefulness of our model, we focus on a specific data sharing scheme which combines the use of batching, buffering, and adaptive piggybacking, as well as allows for the use of VCR functions. We show how to utilize this mathematical model for system sizing and resource allocation purposes.