Family Setup Research Articles

Minimizing maximum tardiness on a single machine with family setup times and machine disruption

Due to the complexity of manufacturing processes, many industries today try to group their production components into families and use a common setup time to process every family. Also, the failure of machinery has an important impact on the planning of production systems. This paper deals with the problem of single machine scheduling with family setup times and randomly machine breakdown. It is assumed that there is disruption along the planning horizon with uncertain start and duration times based on a specific probability distribution function. The goal is to minimize the maximum expected tardiness. For this problem, a hill climbing based heuristic (HCO) and a novel hybrid variable neighborhood search metaheuristic (HVNS) have been developed. A branch and bound (BB) procedure is also proposed to optimally solve this problem using HCO and HVNS algorithms to derive upper bounds. Comparison of the solutions obtained from the presented algorithms with the mathematical programming model of the problem in small-scale instances shows that the solutions obtained from the proposed algorithms have a good quality in terms of the expected value of the objective function and the solving time. The computational results for executing the proposed algorithms on 36 series of various instances show that the BB procedure is able to solve 97.76% of the instances within the specified time frame and HVNS metaheuristic is capable to solve 41.07% of them, optimally. Also, the maximum mean deviation of HVNS solutions from the optimal solution is reported below 5% for hard instances and below 15% for instances with medium complexity. After performing a non-parametric hypothesis test, it is found that at a confidence level 99.9%, the deviation index for HVNS is less than 1.5% for difficult problems and less than 9% for semi-difficult ones. Finally, the results of solving large scale instances, demonstrate the efficiency of proposed metaheuristic.

The honor and respect of Women: A comparative study based on Quran o Sunnah and current practices in Pakistan

Islam honors both men and women and assigns several rights and duties on both of them. These rights and duties are based on their physique and nature for a proper family setup and peaceful society. In fact, it is the great initiative of Islam that it has banned female infanticide. Similarly, it is not important that Islam allows them to get education but it is their duty to get education. In addition, proper nourishment, health and security are among basic rights of women. Above all, she is the very first school to train and educate future’s leaders. However, as the current practices of some Muslims are different from the glorious principles of Quran o Sunnah that’s why there is doubt in some minds regarding the honor and respect of women in Islam. To clarify this doubt, there are several verses in Holy Quran which show their honor and dignity. Similarly, the sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) are enough to respectfully deal with women either they are mothers, sisters, daughters or wives. The only issue is, to implement these injunctions and to practice them in the society.

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Minimizing Tardiness in Parallel Machine Scheduling With Sequence Dependent Family Setups

Parallel machine scheduling with sequence-dependent family setups has attracted much attention from academia and industry due to its practical applications. In a real-world manufacturing system, however, solving the scheduling problem becomes challenging since it is required to address urgent and frequent changes in demand and due-dates of products. To minimize the total tardiness of the scheduling problem, we propose a deep reinforcement learning (RL) based scheduling framework in which trained neural networks (NNs) are able to solve unseen scheduling problems without re-training even when such changes occur. Specifically, we propose state and action representations whose dimensions are independent of production requirements and due-dates of jobs while accommodating family setups. At the same time, an NN architecture with parameter sharing was utilized to improve the training efficiency. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the recent metaheuristics, rule-based, and other RL-based methods in terms of total tardiness. Moreover, the computation time for obtaining a schedule by our framework is shorter than those of the metaheuristics and other RL-based methods.

A comparative study of psychosocial impact in care homes dwelling elderly population and living in community with family

Background: The elderly population is growing enormously in India, and it is projected that the elderly population in India will rise to 12.4% by 2026, and by the year 2050 more than 40% of people would only be elders in India. Due to various social, economical, and other reasons, the number of elderly people living in care homes is increasing. Data regarding cognitive impairment and quality of life is scarce for elderly living in care homes. Aim and Objectives: The purpose of the study is to assess the level of cognitive changes and quality of life of elderly people living in care homes and community in family setup and compare these variables between these two groups. Materials and Methods: 100 subjects (50 in case group and 50 in control group) fulfilling the inclusion criteria were administered Mini Mental Status Examination Scale (MMSE) and MINI-COG to identify cognitive impairment. All the subjects were scored on the WHO Quality Of Life – Bref Scale in order to find out their level of quality of life. Comparison was made under various headings between these groups including severity. Results: On application of MMSE scale found a significant difference (48% of subjects in case group and 14% of the subjects in the control group showed cognitive impairment). In distribution according to scoring of MINI-COG scale in cases and controls. It is found that 40% of subjects in the case group and 08% of the subjects in the control group were screened positive for dementia on MINI-COG scale which is statistically significant difference. In Quality of life domain score in cases and control group patients, It is evident that mean of transformed score (0–100) in physical, psychological, social relationship, environmental domain was 48.85, 47.42, 45.17 and 45.81 in subjects of case group while 58.43, 56.83, 64.17, and 54.02 in the control group. On application of unpaired t-test, there was a significant difference for all the domains. Subjects in the case group who were not having any psychiatric disorder 45% were having a cognitive decline (MMSE

MW v AN: An Analysis of Judicial Redress of Institutional Inequalities Within the Family Set-Up in Kenya

MW v AN: An Analysis of Judicial Redress of Institutional Inequalities Within the Family Set-Up in Kenya

Matheuristics for a parallel machine scheduling problem with non-anticipatory family setup times: Application in the offshore oil and gas industry

In this paper, we address a variant of a batch scheduling problem with identical parallel machines and non-anticipatory family setup times to minimize the total weighted completion time. We developed an ILS and a GRASP matheuristics to solve the problem using a constructive heuristic and two MIP-based neighborhood searches, considering two batch scheduling mathematical formulations. The problem derives from a ship scheduling problem related to offshore oil & gas logistics, the Pipe Laying Support Vessel Scheduling Problem (PLSVSP). The developed methods overcome the current solution approaches in the PLSVSP literature, according to experiments carried out on a benchmark of 72 instances, with different sizes and characteristics, in terms of computational time and solution quality. New best solutions are provided for all medium and large-sized instances, achieving a reduction of more than 10% in the objective function of the best case.

Scheduling pipe laying support vessels with non-anticipatory family setup times and intersections between sets of operations

In this paper, we deal with a problem that arises from the oil industry with the need to schedule a pipe laying support vessel fleet responsible for connecting oil wells to production platforms. We model it as an identical parallel machine scheduling problem, considering a particular case where jobs are composed of intersecting sets of operations and with operations partitioned into families. A non-anticipatory family setup time is incurred on three occasions: when a machine changes the execution of operations from one family to another, when the machine reaches its capacity, and before the first operation on each machine. These considerations, along with other scheduling features, make the problem more challenging and attractive to the scheduling literature. We propose three mathematical formulations to solve 72 generated instances, based on actual data, with up to 50 operations to schedule. Among the formulations, the Batch Scheduling presents better results with the smallest gaps, when compared to the best lower bounds obtained. This formulation considers a dispatching rule to sequence operations within batches, generating better solutions in 22 of the 24 largest instances, dominating the other formulations. A Brazilian oil company currently uses this approach in a production system for its tactical planning.

Heuristic Scheduling of Batch Production Processes Based on Petri Nets and Iterated Greedy Algorithms

Wire rod and bar rolling is an important batch production process in steel production systems. A scheduling problem originated from this process is studied in this work by considering the constraints on sequence-dependent family setup time and release time. For each serial batch to be scheduled, it contains several jobs and the number of late jobs within it varies with its start time. First, we model a rolling process using a Petri net (PN), where a so-called rolling transition describes a rolling operation of a batch. The objective of the concerned problem is to determine a firing sequence of all rolling transitions such that the total number of late jobs is minimal. Next, a mixed-integer linear program is formulated based on the PN model. Due to the NP-hardness of the concerned problem, iterated greedy algorithm (IGA)-based methods by using different neighborhood structures and integrating a variable neighborhood descent method are developed to obtain its near-optimal solutions. To test the accuracy, speed, and stability of the proposed algorithms, we compare their solutions of different-size instances with those of CPLEX (a commercial software) and four heuristic peers. The results indicate that the proposed algorithms outperform their peers and have great potential to be applied to industrial production process scheduling. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —This work deals with a scheduling problem of a batch production process, i.e., wire rod and bar rolling, which is modeled by a Petri net (PN). Due to the NP-hardness of the concerned problem, four iterated greedy algorithm-based methods are developed to solve it. The proposed methods are validated and tested by comparing their solutions with those of four heuristic peers and the exact ones (when available via CPLEX). Extensive experimental results show that they can fast solve one-week-scale instances with better performance than their peers’, thereby proving the readiness to put them in industrial use. When solving a one-month-scale instance, the proposed methods show much better performance than others.

Quality of life of women working from home in COVID-19 lockdown: a questionnaire survey

Background: Lockdown as a precaution is aimed to reduce the community transmission and to defeat the pandemic COVID-19. The pandemic lockdown has an impact on lifestyle strategies in work from home employees.Methods: A cross sectional, questionnaire study with observational sampling of size no. 110 was conducted through web based data collection (google form) across India.Results: Data shows lockdown impact on lifestyle strategies like physical health, psychological health, social relationship and environmental factors of working from home employees were found significant. Majority of participants (working from home women) showed better quality of life in lockdown.Conclusions: This web-based survey shows significant results to highlight that women can balance their life style strategies with daily routine in COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Lockdown situation made women more active, mobile and balance their official work along with the family setup. 67.3% respondents were married and working from home and 48% of participants maintaining their better quality of life since lockdown.

Geriatric Depression: A Comparative Study between the Elder Population at Old Age Home and in their Own Home

Background: Geriatric depression is one of the major causes of Morbidity and Disability Adjusted LifeYears (DALYs). It is often under diagnosed. The trend now being changed from a joint family setup to thatof nuclear family have cost many elderlies their homes and secure support structure, thereby affecting theirmental health.Objectives : To assess the prevalence of geriatric depression in Hubli-Dharwad district. To compare thesame among the elderly population living with their family, in their homes with those who were living inold-age care facilities.Methods: A comparative study was conducted among 170 elderly people aged ?60 years selected from oldage homes and surrounding areas of KIMS Hubli from 6th May to 5th June 2012. Geriatric Depression Scale(GDS) was used and Direct questionnaire method was adopted to collect the data from the study participantswith the verbal informed consent.Results: Out of 170 people surveyed, 49.5% of them were either mildly or severely depressed, with thedepression being higher in females than males. And old age home people are found to be more depressedthan those in their own homes.Conclusion: Nearly half of the study population showed the signs of depression, where education and socioeconomic status of the individuals affected the depression level to a significant extent

Creative education & political systems their common effect on sustainable business attitudes

There is a prima facie argument that those who are affected by a decision should have a say in that decision. In terms of intergenerational equity, as well as regarding the evolution and implementation of Transition Pathway Management agendas, this should coercively include young people. In general, their opinions do not have any platform, forum, etc., thus they are ignored and not pursued, as experts and specialists in relevant fields, often for good reasons, develop Transition Strategies. Given the socio-cultural context, approach to technology etc., 10 to 12-year-old people are likely to have very different notions of their specific future, and the way sustainability is evolving within this. This opens up the distinct possibility that (older) experts devise and shape transition pathways that hopefully deliver greater sustainability and less carbon-intensive lifestyles, but do so in a governance void and in a direction that those who are destined to live (in) these futures find it difficult to loosen – or at least share – the control over those processes. In short, not involving young people in the evolvement of Transition Pathways and their Management (TPaM) risks a governance deficit as well as an implementation challenge. To understand how young people, conceptualise their future within the wider theoretical framework of TPaM and the role of CSR in promoting sustainable lifestyles, 105 Swiss pupils, living in a quite good situated (i.e., geographically as well as financially), at ages between 10 and 12 were asked to write an essay about their future visions.The paper outlines these visions, the pupils’ perception of the future, and evaluates the adopted solutions (i.e. pathways) by qualitative analyses. Moreover, the identified TPaM are discussed in several follow-up workshops with the pupils at the age of 12 regarding their implications for the private and public sectors, notably affecting behaviours of e.g., energy and food consumption, mobility, educational systems, family set-ups, etc. Contrary to perceptions about the fully connected lifestyles of modern pupils, the results show for instance, their worries or even apprehensibility about the rapid pace of technological change. Thus, they fear isolation and “not being able to keep up”.Following this, creative educational concepts that foster the evolvement of TPaM, the identification of innovative new measures and practical implications are key drivers. They establish legitimacy so to discuss potential TPaM at several political and private levels. Further, they build an integrated part to engage young people (and experts) in the development of suitable pathways towards the attainment of their visions. This involves a viable theoretical framework that is strong and deeply anchored and, to some extent, a convergence between pathway components as well as hands-on drivers to induce change processes. Based on this framework's practical step-by-step-approach it is able – independent from whether the very beginning are future visions or the status quo – to avoid barriers or hindering preconditions, only because vision is the multi-level perspective. Such an approach might allow also a comparison of different pathways.

An exact dynamic programming algorithm for the precedence-constrained class sequencing problem

This article discusses the precedence-constrained class sequencing problem (PCCSP). In scheduling terms, this is a single-machine problem with precedence constraints and family setups with the goal of minimizing the number of setups. From a practical perspective, PCCSP covers a wide range of applications such as, for example, scheduling problems in systems with job families where multipurpose processors need retooling to switch from a job of one family to a job of another family. Previous research has shown that PCCSP is NP-hard and that no polynomial-time algorithm with constant worst-case performance exists unless P=NP. So far, only little research has been conducted on the development of specific computational methods for PCCSP. This article bridges this gap by proposing a dynamic programming algorithm for solving PCCSP exactly. It comprises specialized lower bound computations, node merging and precedence reasoning algorithms, and heuristics that successfully exploit the problem’s structure. Based on extensive numerical experiments, we analyze the algorithm in detail and show that it outperforms mixed-integer programming and constraint programming models.

Teenage pregnancy: A psychosocial burden on girlchild education in Kenya

In January 2020 world Health Organization (WHO) declared an outbreak of a new Coronavirus disease, COVID-19 to be a public health emergency of international concern and could spread around the world. March 2020 WHO declared it a pandemic. Governments and communities around the world are struggling to contain and respond to this challenge, which threatens to undo decades of progress, including towards ending child, early and forced marriage. With the continued spread of the virus in Kenya, women, girls and children face increased and multiple challenges including physical and psychological violence related to family confinement, isolation and economic vulnerability. The restriction and stay home orders across the globe, including Kenya, do not prescribe measures that should be taken for family set ups with ongoing domestic violence. A sharp surge in reported teenage pregnancies is threatening to cut short the pursuit of education for vulnerable girls, with the latest statistics revealing that a total of 3,964 girls aged 19 years and under were reported pregnant in Machakos county in Kenya over a period of four months. While the government of Kenya is committed to ensure availability of sexual and reproductive health services for and Adolescent Girls and Young Women to end violence against women and girls, deliberate measures must be put in place to ensure that economic incentives and social safety nets are gender-sensitive and empower every adolescent girl and young woman during the global pandemic.

Single machine campaign planning under sequence dependent family setups and co-production

We investigate tactical level production planning problem in process industries, with float glass manufacturing being the specific application domain. In the presence of high sequence dependent family setup costs, the need for planning production in batches, or campaigns as named in the float glass industry, arises. Moreover, the float glass manufacturing has some unique properties such as partially controllable co-production and uninterruptible production. The motivation of our work is a real life problem encountered at a major float glass manufacturing company in Turkey. We develop two mixed integer programming formulations and investigate some variants to solve the problem. Our formulations are capable of handling different resolutions in input data such as demand forecast expressed in discrete time and setup durations expressed in continuous time. We compare formulations both theoretically and by running computational experiments. Furthermore, we conduct additional experiments to gain insights about characteristics of the generated campaign plans from a business perspective.

Compliance-gaining messages between married Shona couples

This article seeks to establish how and why compliance-gaining transpires in a Shona family set-up. Much research has been done on persuasion in the Western and Eastern cultures, unlike in Shona culture. In this article, we focus on persuasion strategies between a married Shona couple and establish the degree of directness and indirectness of their requests. The term ‘compliance-gaining’ is used interchangeably with the word ‘persuasion’ in this article as they both refer to the same process. Compliance-seeking and compliance-resisting strategies used by Shona married couples, and the persuasive message dimensions used by sources in such influence interactions, are illustrated. In so doing, the sequence of the persuasive arguments and counter-arguments, as well as the clinching argument, in a persuasive message of a married Shona couple are identified. Furthermore, it is hoped that this research article will provide insight into Shona persuasion strategies and skills and contribute important perspectives to the existing body of knowledge of persuasion.

Quality of life among elderly living in old age homes and in family of Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu, India

Background: Quality of life in elderly is more relevant towards an ageing society. In India, the awareness is very little about the special needs of the elderly and their care takers (physical and mental health, psychological and social support). Furthermore, among elderly there is a variation between those living in old age homes (OAHs) and those living in general population. Hence the present study was undertaken to assess and compare the quality of life of elderly living in OAHs and community.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among elderly in old age homes and family set up of Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu. QOL of elderly was assessed using WHO QOL - brief questionnaire after taking informed consent from the participants. Data was analyzed using SPSS 23.Results: A total of 106 elders from each group old age home and family setup were the study participants. Quality of life was good 72.5% in family and in OAHs it was only 56.2%. The main reason for residing in OAHs was no family, lack of care takers. All the four domains were found to be highly statistically significant.Conclusions: From this study we are able to find out that quality of life in family setup is better than OAHs, psychologically many people were depressed as they live separately from their family and relatives, friends and the community they lived.

Identifying suicidal risk and its association with depression in the elderly population

Background: With increased life expectancy and improved health-care facilities, the number of elderly persons is on the rise worldwide. According to the population census 2011, there are nearly 104 million elderly persons in India, who face several physical and mental health challenges, suicide being one of them. Increased life expectancy, rapid urbanization, sociocultural factors, changing family setups, and lifestyle changes have led to an emergence of varied problems, the most alarming being suicide among the elderly, which often goes unnoticed due to inadequate expression. Further, the risk of suicide increases with depression, which tends to be common among elderly people. Many a times, the indicative signs of depression in the elderly are missed and attributed to usual complaints associated with aging. It has become important to understand the suicidal ideation and behaviors in the elderly, for identifying the risk factors and further facilitating prevention. The present study aims to explore suicidal ideation and behavior among the elderly population. Materials and Methods: A total of 110 individuals of both genders aged 60 years and above were included in the study. The General Health Questionnaire-12 was administered for screening, the Geriatric Depression Scale, and Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-R were administered to assess the presence of depression and suicidal behavior, respectively. Results: The results of the study show the presence of suicidal ideation and behavior in 42.72% of the individuals; it was also found to be more among males. Conclusions: Thus, these findings implicate that the elderly are at a considerable risk for suicidal behaviors, which warrants attention for early identification and subsequent psychosocial intervention.

Bi-objective Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling with Family Setup Times Using Hybrid Genetic and Migrating Birds Optimization Algorithms

Bi-objective Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling with Family Setup Times Using Hybrid Genetic and Migrating Birds Optimization Algorithms

Women's Control Over Decision to Participate in Surrogacy : Experiences of Surrogate Mothers in Gujarat.

The rise of surrogacy in India over the last decade has helped individuals across the world to realize their parenting aspirations. In the macro-context of poverty in India and the hierarchical and patriarchal family set-up, concerns are expressed about coercion of women to participate in surrogacy. While the ethical issues engulfing surrogacy are widely discussed, not much is known about the role women play in the decision-making to participate in surrogacy. The paper aims to addresses this gap and is based on a part of a larger ethnographic study conducted at a surrogacy clinic in Anand, Gujarat, India. We explored experiences of forty-one surrogate mothers using in-depth interviews and analysed the narratives to identify women's own perceived role in the decision-making to participate in surrogacy. Narratives describing the decision-making process were identified and treated as a preliminary unit of analysis. We examined the use of singular and plural pronouns like "I," "me," and "mine" versus "we," "us," and "our," along with the use of active and passive voice to determine whether women assumed responsibility for the decision to participate in surrogacy or they attributed the decision to others. Findings unravelled the complexities of the decision-making process and indicated that eighty-five percent of the women played an active role in the decision-making to participate in surrogacy, albeit with new avenues of exploitation in the commercial market space and raised serious bioethical concerns.

Becoming part of a blended family

Advice for parents on how to help their children adjust to being part of a new family set-up. By Annette Rawstrone