Packing Instructions Research Articles

Predicting Human Discretion to Adjust Algorithmic Prescription: A Large-Scale Field Experiment in Warehouse Operations

Conventional optimization algorithms that prescribe order packing instructions (which items to pack in which sequence in which box) focus on box volume utilization yet tend to overlook human behavioral deviations. We observe that packing workers at the warehouses of the Alibaba Group deviate from algorithmic prescriptions for 5.8% of packages, and these deviations increase packing time and reduce operational efficiency. We posit two mechanisms and demonstrate that they result in two types of deviations: (1) information deviations stem from workers having more information and in turn better solutions than the algorithm; and (2) complexity deviations result from workers’ aversion, inability, or discretion to precisely implement algorithmic prescriptions. We propose a new “human-centric bin packing algorithm” that anticipates and incorporates human deviations to reduce deviations and improve performance. It predicts when workers are more likely to switch to larger boxes using machine learning techniques and then proactively adjusts the algorithmic prescriptions of those “targeted packages.” We conducted a large-scale randomized field experiment with the Alibaba Group. Orders were randomly assigned to either the new algorithm (treatment group) or Alibaba’s original algorithm (control group). Our field experiment results show that our new algorithm lowers the rate of switching to larger boxes from 29.5% to 23.8% for targeted packages and reduces the average packing time of targeted packages by 4.5%. This idea of incorporating human deviations to improve optimization algorithms could also be generalized to other processes in logistics and operations. This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management.

Predicting Human Discretion to Adjust Algorithmic Prescription: A Large-Scale Field Experiment in Warehouse Operations

Conventional optimization algorithms that prescribe order packing instructions (which items to pack in which sequence in which box) focus on box volume utilization yet tend to overlook human behavioral deviations. We observe that packing workers at the warehouses of Alibaba Group deviate from algorithmic prescriptions for 5.8% of packages, and these deviations increase packing time and reduce operational efficiency. We posit two mechanisms and demonstrate that they result in two types of deviations: (1) information deviations stem from workers having more information and in turn better solutions than the algorithm; and (2) complexity deviations result from workers' aversion, inability or discretion to precisely implement algorithmic prescriptions. We propose a new human-centric bin packing that anticipates and incorporates human deviations to reduce deviations and improve performance. It predicts when workers are more likely to switch to larger boxes using machine learning techniques and then pro-actively adjusts the algorithmic prescriptions of those ``targeted packages.'' We conducted a large-scale randomized field experiment with the Alibaba Group. Orders were randomly assigned to either the new algorithm (treatment group) or Alibaba's original algorithm (control group). Our field experiment results show that our new algorithm lowers the rate of switching to larger boxes from 29.5% to 23.8% for targeted packages and reduces the average packing time of targeted packages by 4.5%. This idea of incorporating human deviations to improve optimization algorithms could also be generalized to other processes in logistics and operations.

A educação ambiental como instrumento de conscientização e sensibilização no uso adequado dos agrotóxicos

O uso consciente dos agrotóxicos é de extrema importância para melhor rendimento da produção agrícola e preservação dos recursos renováveis, do meio ambiente e saúde humana. É importante que a sociedade, e principalmente os produtores, tomem os devidos cuidados durante a utilização dos agrotóxicos, para que não haja contaminação dos alimentos, do ambiente, dos agricultores e consumidores. Conhecer a percepção do risco, por parte da população exposta é importante para desenvolver propostas de intervenção sobre o problema junto à comunidade, através de ações de conscientização sobre os riscos associados ao uso indiscriminado destes produtos, ou seja, ao uso incorreto e durante longo prazo. O trabalho teve como objetivo, identificar e analisar o nível de conhecimento da comunidade rural do distrito Santa Maria, na cidade de Areia - PB, a respeito do uso indiscriminado dos agrotóxicos e realizar intervenções, através da Educação Ambiental, que permitissem o uso correto dessas substâncias pela comunidade. O trabalho foi realizado em duas etapas, com agricultores do Distrito Santa Maria. A primeira etapa ocorreu com aplicação de questionários semiestruturados e posteriormente, com base nas respostas dos questionários, foram realizadas intervenções através de oficinas e debates junto à comunidade. A maioria dos entrevistados (96%) é analfabeta ou possui apenas o ensino fundamental incompleto, acentuando a dificuldade na leitura e compreensão das instruções das embalagens. Os agrotóxicos utilizados pelos agricultores são do tipo herbicida, principalmente glifosato. Estes produtos são adquiridos em vendas não autorizadas, sem a apresentação do receituário agronômico. O descarte das embalagens é feito de maneira incorreta, sem a devolução as centrais de recolhimento. 37,7% dos entrevistados afirmaram não utilizar os equipamentos de proteção individual. Os que utilizam (62,3%) afirmaram não fazer de forma correta. Apenas 19% disseram ler os rótulos das embalagens, porém, nem todos compreendem o que é lido, devido seu teor técnico. As intervenções realizadas com os agricultores colaboraram para o repasse de informações, além de compartilhar experiências e exemplos que pudessem ser utilizadas como ferramenta de sensibilização sobre uso adequado dos agrotóxicos. A Educação ambiental foi um mecanismo importante na realização deste trabalho, trazendo luz as questões não apenas ambientais como também políticas e sociais.

Detecting familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) in general practice: An audit within the Medway Clinical Commissioning Group

Detecting familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) in general practice: An audit within the Medway Clinical Commissioning Group

Effect of Vicriviroc With or Without Ritonavir on Oral Contraceptive Pharmacokinetics: A Randomized, Open-Label, Parallel-Group, Fixed-Sequence Crossover Trial in Healthy Women

Background Because women of childbearing potential represent 20% to 25% of the HIV population, it is important to determine any potential drug interactions between vicriviroc, an antiretroviral agent, and an oral contraceptive (OC) to provide guidance on any potential dose adjustments. Objective The primary study objective was to determine the effect of vicriviroc, a C-C chemokine receptor type 5 inhibitor, alone or in the presence of ritonavir, on the pharmacokinetics (AUC and C max) of the study OC (ethinyl estradiol [EE] 0.035 mg + norethindrone [NET] 1 mg). A secondary objective was to monitor the safety and tolerability of vicriviroc plus an OC with and without ritonavir. Methods This was a randomized, open-label, parallel-group, single-center study with a fixed-sequence crossover design. Female subjects were randomized into 2 groups and treated for 2 menstrual cycles. In cycle 1, all received the OC alone, per standard 28-day pack instructions. On the first 10 days of cycle 2, group 1 received OC + vicriviroc and group 2 received OC + ritonavir; on the following 11 days, both groups received OC + vicriviroc + ritonavir. Blood samples were collected up to 24 hours after dosing on prespecified days. Pharmacokinetic parameters, including AUC 0–24, C max, and C min, were calculated using noncompartmental methods, and drug interactions were evaluated using an ANOVA model by treatment group. Adverse events were collected using physical examination, vital sign measurements, clinical laboratory analysis, electrocardiography, and questioning at predefined time points throughout the study to assess the safety profile. Results Twenty-seven subjects were enrolled (26 white, 1 black). The median age and body mass index were 21 years (range, 18–36 years) and 24.5 kg/m 2 (range, 19.1–31.3 kg/m 2), respectively. Twenty-one subjects completed the study and were included in the pharmacokinetic analysis; 4 discontinued for reasons unrelated to study drug and 2 discontinued because of adverse events. Vicriviroc had little effect on the pharmacokinetics of the OC. EE mean ratio estimates for C max and AUC 0–24 compared with OC administered alone were 91% and 97%, respectively, and for NET were 106% and 93%. Subjects receiving ritonavir, alone or with vicriviroc, experienced decreases in exposure of EE (C max mean ratio estimates, 89% and 76%; AUC 0–24 mean ratio estimates, 71% each, for ritonavir alone and ritonavir with vicriviroc, respectively) and, to a lesser extent, decreases in NET (C max mean ratio estimates 89% each; AUC 0–24 mean ratio estimates: 93% and 83%, for ritonavir alone and ritonavir with vicriviroc, respectively). Twenty-two of 27 (81%) subjects reported ≥1 treatment-emergent adverse event (TEAE). During cycle 1, TEAEs were reported for 18 of 27 (67%) subjects while receiving OC alone and for 3 of 24 (13%) subjects while receiving placebo OC. During cycle 2, TEAEs were reported for 8 of 12 (67%) subjects while receiving vicriviroc with OC, 4 of 12 (33%) subjects while receiving ritonavir with OC, 7 of 22 (32%) subjects while receiving vicriviroc + ritonavir with OC, and 2 of 22 (9%) subjects while receiving placebo OC. The most commonly reported TEAE was headache (vicriviroc + OC, n = 1; ritonavir + OC, n = 3; vicriviroc + ritonavir + OC, n = 2; OC alone, n = 12; placebo OC, n = 2). No TEAEs were considered severe. Conclusions In this population of healthy female subjects, vicriviroc had little effect on the pharmacokinetics of EE or NET, whereas ritonavir, alone or with vicriviroc, was associated with consistent decrease in exposure of EE and a lesser decrease in NET.

Packet-driven General Purpose Instruction Execution on Communication-based Architectures

In the last few years, the development of Multi-Core architectures was driven by the crescent advance in integration technology. In this scenario, when the number of cores increases, problems found on shared communication media, such as busses, can be addressed by using a network approach. This paper proposes the usage of communication capabilities of Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) to execute general purpose instructions. The main idea behind this approach is to allow networks-on-chip architectures to execute general purpose instructions inside each router architecture. This paper addresses the main architectural concerns involved on creating datapaths for routers as well as the programming model suggested to pack instructions on messages. Simulation results on two case studies illustrate the benefits of the proposed architecture when compared to an equivalent NoC-based MP-SoC.

Generation of Pack Instruction Sequence for Media Processors Using Multi-Valued Decision Diagram

SIMD instructions are often implemented in modern multimedia oriented processors. Although SIMD instructions are useful for many digital signal processing applications, most compilers do not exploit SIMD instructions. The difficulty in the utilization of SIMD instructions stems from data parallelism in registers. In assembly code generation, the positions of data in registers must be noted. A technique of generating pack instructions which pack or reorder data in registers is essential for exploitation of SIMD instructions. This paper presents a code generation technique for SIMD instructions with pack instructions. SIMD instructions are generated by finding and grouping the same operations in programs. After the SIMD instruction generation, pack instructions are generated. In the pack instruction generation, Multi-valued Decision Diagram (MDD) is introduced to represent and to manipulate sets of packed data. Experimental results show that the proposed code generation technique can generate assembly code with SIMD and pack instructions performing repacking of 8 packed data in registers for a RISC processor with a dual-issue coprocessor which supports SIMD and pack instructions. The proposed method achieved speedup ratio up to about 8.5 by SIMD instructions and multiple-issue mechanism of the target processor.

Improving Program Efficiency by Packing Instructions into Registers

New processors, both embedded and general purpose, often have conflicting design requirements involving space, power, and performance. Architectural features and compiler optimizations often target one or more design goals at the expense of the others. This paper presents a novel architectural and compiler approach to simultaneously reduce power requirements, decrease code size, and improve performance by integrating an instruction register file (IRF) into the architecture. Frequently occurring instructions are placed in the IRF. Multiple entries in the IRF can be referenced by a single packed instruction in ROM or L1 instruction cache. Unlike conventional code compression, our approach allows the frequent instructions to be referenced in arbitrary combinations. The experimental results show significant improvements in space and power, as well as some improvement in execution time when using only 32 entries. These advantages make packing instructions into registers an effective approach for improving overall efficiency.

Subject competency of teachers and level of dependence on resource packs to teach levers, gears and pulleys

This pilot study set out to ascertain whether the level of dependence on resource material is related to teaching experience, existing understanding in mechanics, and perceived self confidence in science and technology. Details of teaching experience and qualifications were obtained from 11 experienced teachers and 10 initial teacher trainees, and understanding of mechanics was assessed by a written test. Each teacher worked through one commercially produced inservice pack about levers, pulleys or gears, and then prepared a 30 minute session for 4 ten year old children. Videos of the sessions were analysed with respect to the extent to which the pack was the sole focus; the amount of integration with other teaching aids and approaches; and the extent individual children's needs were satisfied. Although science qualifications influenced teacher confidence, they were not accurate predictors of relevant knowledge and teaching competence. As the majority of teachers followed pack instructions closely, the children's needs were not always well matched.