Pre-defined Schedule Research Articles

Persistent Schedule Evaluation and Adaptive Re-planning for Maritime Search Tasks

Search operations performed by adaptive autonomous maritime vehicles have been a topic of considerable interest for many years. Such operations require carefully scheduled coordination of multiple vehicles performing search tasks across the region of interest. Due to the inherent uncertainty of the maritime environment, however, an initially planned search schedule may not be maintained if the vehicles have significant capability to adapt their tasks to match the environment they detect in real time. We propose a multi-vehicle adaptive algorithm for dynamic evaluation and elastic re-planning of variable-length tasks commonly found in the maritime environments. In adaptive evaluation and re-planning problems, a set of tasks are initially planned for execution by adaptive, autonomous search vehicles. Tasks are allocated to search vehicles under a pre-defined schedule based on prior knowledge and desired outcome. Because of the vehicles’ autonomy and reactivity to in situ conditions such as environment or target pose, the precise duration and actions required by each task are unknown a priori. We develop a hidden Markov model (HMM) for propagating task estimates, coupled with a quadratic-programming-based elastic re-scheduler. The result is an integrated estimate-and-schedule adaptation scheme that quickly and efficiently re-plans the vehicles’ schedules based on in situ observations. The numerical simulation results show that this novel HMM approach decreases avoidable schedule variation by over a factor of two compared to existing methods.

The High Accurate Automatic School Bell Controller Based On Arduino Uno DS1307 I2C Real-time Clock

Education plays a crucial role in developing human resources with the necessary character and competence to meet the demands of the future Industrial 4.0 revolution. To ensure the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process, schools require supporting facilities and infrastructure. One such component is the school bell, which helps teachers notify students of daily schedules. As technology advances, some schools have adopted an automatic school bell as an alternative to traditional bells. These automatic school bells use Arduino microcontroller technology to ring at scheduled times, automatically improving accuracy and convenience. By utilizing sound output via an Arduino-based system, every created information can be easily delivered and reached. This study follows the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) method, a widely used system development methodology encompassing hardware and software systems. The research successfully demonstrates an automatic school bell system capable of automatically producing notification sounds, optimizing electricity consumption, and generating precise sound frequencies during teaching and learning activities. The output voltage and current results at various parts of the automatic school bell system range from 4.17 to 5.90 volts and 488 to 602 mA, respectively. At the same time, power consumption achieved about 2.07 to 3.38 Watts. An automatic school bell system simplifies ringing the school bell as it seamlessly integrates with the scheduled timetable (software). As a result, the automatic school bell now rings automatically according to the pre-defined schedule, enhancing efficiency and ensuring timely transitions between classes and breaks.

Many-objective day-ahead optimal scheduling of residential flexible loads integrated with stochastic occupant behavior models

Residential flexible load scheduling is playing a more and more vital role in balancing the supply and demand of utility grids with the increasing penetration of solar and wind power generation. Nevertheless, the optimal scheduling of residential flexible loads is significantly impacted by occupant behaviors of household appliance usage. In previous studies, occupant behaviors were generally oversimplified with pre-defined schedules, which ultimately renders optimal dispatch plans infeasible. To address this issue, a new framework has been proposed to optimize the day-ahead scheduling of residential flexible loads, which considers the stochastic occupant behaviors. Firstly, the feature parameters to characterize occupant behaviors of thermostatically controlled loads and deferrable loads were proposed, considering the operation characteristics and scheduling optimization of these flexible loads. A general and easy-to-use stochastic occupant behavior model was then developed using Metropolis Hasting algorithm-based Markov chain Monte Carlo method. The feature parameters derived from the validated stochastic occupant behavior model were then input into the established many-objective optimal model to perform day-ahead optimal dispatch, considering the benefits of various stakeholders. NSGA-III and TOPSIS methods were employed to solve the optimal model. The proposed framework was found to be feasible, as the daily electricity costs, the daily CO2 emissions, and the average ramping index of household power profiles were all decreased by 6.25 %, 6.3 %, and 15.0 %, respectively, when compared to the benchmark. Overall, this framework provides practical guidance for more accurate and reliable day-ahead optimal scheduling of residential flexible loads.

Evaluation of the techno-economic performance of battery electric buses: Case study of a bus line in paris

The high cost of battery electric buses (BEB), driven by battery and infrastructure costs, is a key factor limiting their market penetration. These costs are determined by the choice of battery size and charging infrastructure. In addition, the electrification of public transit buses raises questions regarding the fleets’ punctuality toward their pre-defined schedules, due to the possible schedule delays resulting from BEB charging. In this context, this paper presents a methodology to assess the techno-economic performance of BEB fleets for different battery sizes and charging infrastructures and strategies. The proposed methodology is based on a detailed total cost of ownership (TCO) model considering purchase, operation, maintenance, and infrastructure costs. In addition, a punctuality index (PI) is introduced to quantify schedule delays due to BEB charging events during the day. A case study is used to illustrate the model and results show that overnight charging has the highest TCO, 13% higher than the TCO observed during end-line or opportunity charging. Moreover, a clear trade-off is observed between TCO and BEB punctuality to their schedule. Results show that there is significant room to reduce the TCO of BEB while respecting their operational constraints, by co-optimizing the battery size and charging infrastructure.

Development of methodology for assessing steroid-tapering in clinical trials for biologics in asthma

BackgroundLong-term use of oral corticosteroids (OCS) is associated with a risk of adverse events and comorbidities. As such, a goal in assessing the efficacy of biologics in severe asthma is often to monitor reduction in OCS usage. Importantly, however, OCS dose reductions must be conducted without loss of disease control.Main bodyHerein, we describe the development of OCS-sparing study methodologies for biologic therapies in patients with asthma. In particular, we focus on four randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-group studies of varying sizes (key single-center study [n = 20], SIRIUS [n = 135], ZONDA [n = 220], VENTURE [n = 210]) and one open-label study (PONENTE [n = 598]), which assessed the effect of asthma biologics (mepolizumab, benralizumab or dupilumab) on OCS use using predefined OCS-tapering schedules. In particular, we discuss the evolution of study design elements in these studies, including patient eligibility criteria, the use of tailored OCS dose reduction schedules, monitoring of outcomes, the use of biomarkers and use of repetitive assessments of adrenal function during OCS tapering.ConclusionTaken together, these developments have improved OCS-sparing asthma studies in recent years and the lessons learned may help with optimization of further OCS-sparing studies, and potentially clinical practice in the future.

Patient Pathways During Acute in-Hospital Stroke Treatment: A Qualitative Multi-Method Study.

Introduction:Patients experiencing acute ischemic stroke should access treatment as soon as possible to increase their chances for survival without severe disability. Given the increased complexity of stroke treatment from the provider and patient perspective, this study provides an overview of the pathways followed by stroke patients during in-hospital treatment.Methods:This qualitative study combined twenty-seven observations and fifteen staff interviews at a German comprehensive stroke center providing endovascular treatment (“EVT hospital”). Analysis was based on the COMIC Model for the comprehensive evaluation of complex health care interventions and a grounded theory approach.Results:The patient pathways during in-hospital treatment span the phases (1) admission to hospital, (2) receiving recanalization therapies, and (3) in-patient treatment. Before admission to the EVT hospital, interactions between staff members from the EVT hospital and patients take place as part of the telestroke consultations during which the EVT hospital’s ED neurologist meets the patient via a video- and audio-based connection. During the second phase, when IVT and/or EVT are provided to the patient, three teams (ED, neuroradiology and ICU team) with direct patient interactions intersect at the angiography suite until mechanical recanalisation treatment ends and the patient is transferred to the SU or ICU. In the third phase, the patients are treated on the SU or ICU and staff members interact with them according to a pre-defined schedule as well as based on individual needs.Discussion:Our results show that most direct staff-patient interactions are focussed within one phase, with a smaller number of interactions extending to other phases, and no professional (group) with direct patient interactions cover more than two phases of the acute stroke pathway. Future research should investigate how the pathways described here are experienced from the patient perspective, including how the organisation of visible care processes may influence patient satisfaction. Findings can be translated to accessible patient information resources as well as input for digitalisation efforts, provider orientation and training.

The Role of Training in the Effective Functioning of Intellectual Capital: Case of Algerian Telecom Corporation-Tebessa

In this competitive and rapidly changing era, most of the business organizations are highly concerned to provide their employees with training throughout their careers so that they will remain enough motivated and focused to their work. But the success of any training program depends on effective construction of its pre-defined schedule or model. The training model must be constructed on the basis of particular training needs and consisted of all relevant and important steps which are to be followed by training sessions. From this report appears the importance of training to develop intellectual capital, to promote knowledge and skills. To test the importance of training for survival and continuity of organizations, our study on Algerian Telecom Corporation Tebessa Agency aims to measure the contribution of training and its relationship with other variables. The results show that the relationship between training and intellectual capital is more important than its relationship with the performance knowing that these two types of connections are statistically significant.

Microbubbles combined with ultrasound therapy in ischemic stroke: A systematic review of in-vivo preclinical studies.

BackgroundMicrobubbles (MBs) combined with ultrasound sonothrombolysis (STL) appears to be an alternative therapeutic strategy for acute ischemic stroke (IS), but clinical results remain controversial.ObjectiveThe aim of this systematic review is to identify the parameters tested; to assess evidence on the safety and efficacy on preclinical data on STL; and to assess the validity and publication bias.MethodsPubmed® and Web of ScienceTM databases were systematically searched from January 1995 to April 2017 in French and English. We included studies evaluating STL on animal stroke model. This systematic review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. Data were extracted following a pre-defined schedule by two of the authors. The CAMARADES criteria were used for quality assessment. A narrative synthesis was conducted.ResultsSixteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The result showed that ultrasound parameters and types of MBs were heterogeneous among studies. Numerous positive outcomes on efficacy were found, but only four studies demonstrated superiority of STL versus recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator on clinical criteria. Data available on safety are limited.LimitationsQuality assessment of the studies reviewed revealed a number of biases.ConclusionFurther in vivo studies are needed to demonstrate a better efficacy and safety of STL compared to currently approved therapeutic options.Systematic review registrationhttp://syrf.org.uk/protocols/

Intra-patient variability in adalimumab drug levels within and between cycles in Crohn's disease.

Whether therapeutic drug monitoring for adalimumab needs to be performed at trough has not been defined. To determine intra-patient adalimumab drug-level variation and to identify modulating patient and disease factors. In this prospective observational study, adult patients with Crohn's disease established on maintenance adalimumab had drug levels measured repeatedly according to pre-defined schedules (visit 1: day 4-6, visit 2: day 7-9, trough: day 13-14) across two consecutive fortnightly cycles. Disease activity was assessed using Harvey-Bradshaw Index, C-reactive protein and faecal calprotectin. For this analysis, trough levels ≥4.9 μg/mL were considered therapeutic. Nineteen patients underwent 111 evaluations. Mean intra-patient drug levels from paired visits between cycles did not differ (visit1 cycle1: 4.81, cycle2: 5.21 μg/mL, P = 0.24, visit2 cycle1: 4.86, cycle2: 4.82, P = 0.91 and trough cycle1: 3.95, cycle2: 3.95, P = 0.99), irrespective of disease activity. Drug levels were stable over the first 9 days (visit 1-2), but declined to trough by a mean 1.06 and 0.89 μg/mL between visit 1 or 2, respectively (P < 0.001). Models using nontemporal factors (smoking, syringe delivery device) and levels at earlier visits accounted for 66-80% of the variance in trough levels. On receiver-operating curve analysis, thresholds identified in the first 9 days that predicted a therapeutic trough level were similar to the trough threshold itself, with high sensitivity but modest specificity. While therapeutic drug monitoring should be performed at trough, a drug level ≥4.9 μg/mL obtained during the first 9 days predicts a therapeutic trough drug level with reasonable confidence.

The role of optimization to control traffic signals setting on capacity and flow at peak hours at intersections

Control the pre timing of traffic signals has many advantages because of its responsiveness to traffic demands, short cycles, and effective use of capacity leading to and recovering from oversaturation and amenability to aggressive transit priority. Traffic congestion in urban road and freeway networks leads to a strong degradation of the network infrastructure and accordingly reduced throughput, which can be countered via suitable control measures and strategies. Coordination between intersections in a central system increases capacity, appropriate traffic flow and reduce total delays of vehicles. Scats system has been installed in many world intersections, and many researchers have done about the advantages of it to decrease delays and travel times at intersection. SCATS is a modular system and development of this is possible. Now in Tehran's this system is used and traffic conditions matches on it. Traffic signal timing schedule gives in this system as default and although this system is capable of adapting to the moment traffic but in terms of super saturation and during peak hours due to the lack of optimization, default program around intersection has caused widespread congestion at intersection. In this paper, two intersections of East and West of Tehran have been selected, and in two different situations, the flow to capacity ratio of traffic signal timing has been investigated before and after optimization. Simulation by AIMSUN and optimization by SYNCHRO software is done. After optimization can be observed that if before the pre-defined schedule for SCATS, this plan for each intersection of the volume of traffic at peak hours has been optimized, a great reduction in delay and increase in capacity can be observed at intersections. For example, delay time reduction has been occurred about 14.77 in AM peak time and 12.65 in PM peak time at GOLBARG-DARDASHT intersection.

Pilot project of the Nutrition-Friendly School Initiative (NFSI) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Cotonou, Benin, in West Africa

This paper describes the first African experience with the Nutrition-Friendly School Initiative (NFSI) in two large West African cities: Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Cotonou, Benin. NFSI was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners in 2006, as a means of preventing the double burden of malnutrition: the coexistence of undernutrition and overnutrition among school-children. NFSI pilot-testing is one component of the Partnership Project on the Double Burden of Malnutrition, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency for 6 years (2008-2014). The Project assisted the government in the selection of pilot schools, fostered the installation of health and nutrition committees in selected schools, and helped with the initial school self-assessments. In accordance with the empowering philosophy of health promotion, pilot schools did not follow a pre-defined schedule of interventions, except for the training of teachers in nutrition education and the nutritional (anthropometric) surveillance of schoolchildren. For the latter activities, technical assistance and seminal funds were provided. Yearly planning workshops were held for school committees, with WHO support. In both settings, training was given to street vendors in order to improve the hygiene and nutritional value of food sold to schoolchildren. Other activities included special nutrition events and sanitation measures. In both cities, NFSI showed promising results in terms of school and community mobilization towards improved nutrition and health; however, NFSI must be better understood as an endogenous and self-sustaining approach. Furthermore, household poverty and scarce school resources appear as major barriers to gaining full impact of NFSI in low-income populations.

Intervention characteristics that facilitate return to work after sickness absence: a systematic literature review.

Introduction In many Western countries, a vast amount of interventions exist that aim to facilitate return to work (RTW) after sickness absence. These interventions are usually focused on specific target populations such as employees with low back pain, stress-related complaints or adjustment disorders. The aim of the present study is to detect and identify characteristics of RTW interventions that generally facilitate return to work (i.e. in multiple target populations and across interventions). This type of knowledge is highly relevant to policy makers and health practitioners who want to deliver evidence based care that supports the employee’s health and participation in labour. Methods We performed a keyword search (systematic literature review) in seven databases (period: 1994–2010). In total, 23 articles were included and assessed for their methodological quality. The characteristics of the interventions were evaluated as well. Results Early interventions, initiated in the first 6 weeks of the RTW process were scarce. These were effective to support RTW though. Multidisciplinary interventions appeared effective to support RTW in multiple target groups (e.g. back pain and adjustment disorders). Time contingent interventions in which activities followed a pre-defined schedule were effective in all physical complaints studied in this review. Activating interventions such as gradual RTW were effective in physical complaints. They have not been studied for people with psychological complaints. Conclusions Early- and multidisciplinary intervention and time-contingent-, activating interventions appear most effective to support RTW.

Implementation of standardized time limits in sickness insurance and return-to-work: Experiences of four actors

Purpose: In 2008, time limits were introduced in Swedish sickness insurance, comprising a pre-defined schedule for return-to-work. The purpose of this study was to explore experienced consequences of these time limits. Sick-listed persons, physicians, insurance officials and employers were interviewed regarding the process of sick-listing, rehabilitation and return-to-work in relation to the reform. Method: The study comprises qualitative interviews with 11 sick-listed persons, 4 insurance officials, 5 employers and 4 physicians (n = 24). Results: Physicians, employers, and sick-listed persons described insurance officials as increasingly passive, and that responsibility for the process was placed on the sick-listed. Several ethical dilemmas were identified, where officials were forced to act against their ethical principles. Insurance officials’ principle of care often clashed with the standardization of the process, that is based on principles of egalitarianism and equal treatment. Conclusions: The cases reported in this study suggest that a policy for activation and early return-to-work in some cases has had the opposite effect: central actors remain passive and the responsibility is placed on the sick-listed, who lacks the strength and knowledge to understand and navigate through the system. The standardized insurance system here promoted experiences of procedural injustice, for both officials and sick-listed persons.Implications for RehabilitationEthical dilemmas may arise in implementing egalitarian policies, since they sometimes clash with insurance officials’ principles of care.A policy for activation and early return-to-work has in the reported cases led to more passive rehabilitation actors.Sick-listed persons experienced that they were given much responsibility, although lacking strength and knowledge to fulfil it.

Optimizing the storage assignment in a warehouse served by milkrun logistics

This paper addresses the problem of storage assignment in a warehouse characterized by multi-command picking and served by milkrun logistics. In such a logistic system, vehicles circulate between the warehouse and the production facilities of the plant according to a pre-defined schedule, often with multiple cycles (routes) serving different departments. We assume that a request probability can be assigned to each item and each cycle, which leads to a special case of the correlated storage assignment problem. A MIP model is proposed for finding a class-based storage policy that minimizes the order cycle time, the average picking effort, or a linear combination of these two criteria. Computational experiments show that our approach can achieve an up to 36–38% improvement in either criterion compared to the classical COI-based strategy.

A New Method to Build the FF Schedule Time List

In a single segment Foundation Fieldbus system, a link active scheduler, according to a pre-defined schedule time list, controls all remote periodic message transfers between different field devices on bus. The remote periodic message not only has time constraints but also often has precedence constrains. In this paper a new method to build the schedule time list is proposed, in which both time constraints and precedence constrains are considered and described by modifying release time and deadline. The method proposed is based on slack time monotonic and local search. An example of application shows the process of building FF schedule time list.

Adaptive control of a high-frequency DC–DC converter by parameter scheduling

Two digitally implemented control strategies are described for the full-bridge, phase-shift controlled DC–DC converter with an active clamp. The controller parameters are adjusted on-line according to a pre-defined schedule in order to obtain invariant transient behaviour across the converter operating range. The scheduling regime is determined from a sampled-data small-signal model of the converter. Practical results are included for a 2.5 kW, 50 kHz system employing a TMS320C31 digital signal processor as the controller.

High availability in a real-time system

The area of building embedded real-time systems is one in which the applications being designed are more advanced than the available underlying system support. Examples of such applications can be found in several fields, including robot control, avionics, and plant control systems. These systems all have hard real-time requirements: if a deadline is missed, then the result is catastrophic. Furthermore, such deadlines must often be met even in the face of bounded processor or network failures. Yet, the principles for building such systems are still being developed and the availability of systems supporting these principles is very limited. One of the most important characteristics required by a real-time system is predictability, and predictability can be met in part by ensuring that all timing constraints are met. In order to meet timing constraints, the worst case execution must be computable. Hence, all actions need to be time bounded in order to compute the cost of a given thread, and a scheduling policy must be used that guarantees resource contention does not cause deadlines to be missed [LL73, SRL90]. Several recent research projects have addressed the problem of predictability both in the context of centralized and distributed systems, including ARTS [TM89], RT-Mach [TNR90], MARS [DRSK89], and Spring [SR87, SR89] These projects are based on real-time scheduling algorithms, and usually also include tools for the off-line development of pre-defined schedules. The issue of predictable operation in the face of crashes and network failures, however, has not been as well addressed. Failures are masked by using redundancy. For example, in a distributed system the failure of a given process can be masked by replicating the process on several different machines. By doing so, the failure of one replica (caused by the crash of the machine, for example), does not imply a failure in the service: the other replicas can still provide the desired service [Sch90]. Even ignoring predictability, the development of fault-tolerant applications can be a complex task when the programmer does not have supporting software tools. At Cornell, we have developed the ISIS toolkit that supplies a group programming paradigm for building fault-tolerant programs [BJS87, BC91]. However, the current version of this system is not suitable for building real-time programs. ISIS runs on top of Unix and contains no scheduling support for writing predictable real-time applications. Our goal is to create an environment that supports the development of hard real-time systems even in the face of resource loss. Corto, the system we are building, will support the basic programming abstractions of ISIS; namely, ordered delivery of messages to groups of processes and agreement on membership. Corto will also support the predictable scheduling of processes and communication that systems like ARTS and RT-Mach provide. We are finding it challenging to integrate these two goals. ISIS supports a model of programming called virtual synchrony in which events such as failure, recovery and message delivery are totally ordered. This abstraction is fundamental to ISIS; because of virtual synchrony, building applications that maintain distributed state in the face of changing resources becomes very straightforward. However, the implementation of virtual synchrony is done by a kind of distributed scheduler which must be made predictable. Hence, implementing Corto is not just running ISIS on top of a real-time kernel. Our initial approach is to build a suite of basic mechanisms, described below, that support a small set of real-time applications. We are implementing these mechanisms on top of the ISIS transport layer (MUTS [vRBC + 92]) running on a stand-alone Unix system with minimal terminal support and our own scheduling. While such a system will not be completely hard real-time, this version will help us refine the right set of mechanisms needed for highly available real-time applications. We will then move the system to a kernel that supports hard real-time scheduling.