Protracted Operations Research Articles

Optimizing Genetic Algorithm by Implementation of An Enhanced Selection Operator

The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) represents an extensively researched challenge in combinatorial optimization. Genetic Algorithms (GAs), recognized for their nature-inspired approach, stand as potent heuristics for resolving combinatorial optimization problems. Nevertheless, GA exhibits inherent deficiencies, notably premature convergence, which diminishes population diversity and consequential inefficiencies in computational processes. Such drawbacks may result in protracted operations and potential misallocation of computational resources, particularly when confronting intricate NP-hard optimization problems. To address these challenges, the current study underscores the pivotal role of the selection operator in ameliorating GA efficiency. The proposed methodology introduces a novel parameter operator within the Stochastic Universal Selection (SUS) framework, aimed at constricting the search space and optimizing genetic operators for parent selection. This innovative approach concentrates on selecting individuals based on their fitness scores, thereby mitigating challenges associated with population sorting and individual ranking while concurrently alleviating computational complexity. Experimental results robustly validate the efficacy of the proposed approach in enhancing both solution quality and computational efficiency, thereby positioning it as a noteworthy contribution to the domain of combinatorial optimization.

SOLDIERS HEALTH MONTORING AND TRACKING USING GSM AND GPS

In enemy territory soldiers not only have to deal with the physical threat, but also with stress andfatigue caused by protracted operations or lack of sleep. So for the security purpose we need a tool for remote soldier performance and health monitoring. So in this project a tool is implemented using biosensors for health monitoring purpose. Also a GPS system is used in order to track the location of soldier. Additionally a GSM modem is also used to make the system wirelessly compatible. Any abnormalities in the readings of wireless body area sensor network (WBASNs) is considered as a trigger for GSM to establish the connection between the soldier and base unit and send current location and health status to the receiver. By using all this equipments we had tried to implement the basic guarding system for the soldier in low cost, light weighted, portable and precise device.

Failure Rates Based on Alveolar Cleft Size: An Analysis of the Critical Size Defect for rhBMP-2/DBM and ICGB in Alveolar Cleft Repair

Alveolar cleft repair (ACR) using iliac crest bone graft (ICBG) is the standard of care at many institutions for children with complete cleft lip and palate at mixed dentition. Harvesting bone may result in donor site morbidity, protracted operations, and longer hospitalizations. With the advent of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein (rhBMP-2) and demineralized bone matrix (DBM), the inherent drawbacks of using ICBG during ACR can be avoided. Recent studies demonstrate that rhBMP-2 with DBM (rhBMP-2/DBM) has equal graft success versus ICBG without incurring serious adverse events.

Advanced Jacket for Military Defense and Social Welfare

Abstract: As the climatic conditions are changing rapidly, the winters are getting much colder, especially in northern region and the western region of India. Since we developed a smart army jacket using control media devices such as, GPS, SENSORS in the jacket. The smart army jacket aims for providing reliable health monitoring as well as position tracking of soldier. Some of climatically conditions are led to unfortunate deaths of soldiers. This jacket can automatically sense the temperature inside, outside using temperature sensors. We are using coils for heating purpose and the temperature of the coil will depends on the outer temperature. GPS, the models used for communication purpose. Hence for monitoring the health and the heart rate of the soldier health monitoring equipment sensors are been establish in the jacket as well. In enemy territory soldiers not only have to deal with the physical threat, but also with stress and fatigue caused by protracted operations or lack of sleep. so for the security purpose we need a tool for remote soldier performance and health monitoring. so in this project a tool are implemented using bio medical sensors like heartbeat sensor, temperature sensor for health monitoring purpose by using the microcontroller.

A comparison of clinical outcomes of abdominal aortic aneurysm patients with favorable and hostile neck angulation treated by endovascular repair with the Treovance stent graft

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to compare outcomes of patients with favorable neck angulation (FNA) and hostile neck angulation (HNA) treated with the Treovance stent graft (Terumo Aortic [formerly Bolton Medical], Sunrise, Fla). MethodsPatients with abdominal aortic aneurysms suitable for endovascular repair with Treovance were included in the RATIONALE postmarket surveillance registry. A post hoc subgroup analysis compared patients with infrarenal neck angles <60 degrees (FNA) and ≥60 degrees (HNA). ResultsAfter 1 year, 179 FNA (89.5%) and 21 HNA (10.5%) patients were analyzed. Both groups were similar in terms of sex (male, 92.7% FNA and 95.2% HNA) and age (73.0 years vs 72.6 years), but the HNA group had more Asian or other race representation (7.3% vs 19.0%) and more patients assigned to American Society of Anesthesiologists class 3 and class 4 (57.6% vs 66.7%). Mean suprarenal angles (standard deviation) were 13.1 (±13.5) degrees vs 29.0 (±16.4) degrees; mean infrarenal angles were 23.2 (±16.4) degrees vs 65.4 (±4.6) degrees, respectively. Aneurysm sac size maximum diameter was 58.1 (±9.8) mm vs 62.0 (±14.1) mm. There was a significant difference in unplanned adjunctive procedures (2.2% vs 19.0%; P = .01). Mean procedural duration was also significantly different for HNA patients, who underwent protracted operations (111.3 [±47.3] minutes vs 153.5 [±44.5] minutes; P < .0001). However, there were no significant differences in rates of clinical success (96.1% vs 95.2%). The rate of reintervention was low overall but 0% in the HNA group. Changes in sac size at 1 year were significant in both groups but not as pronounced in HNA patients (relative change of −11.8% [±13.3] vs −6.6% [±11.4]). ConclusionsPatients with high neck angulation treated with Treovance underwent more complex procedures but showed equally good technical success and 1-year clinical success parameters.

Supply chain agility in humanitarian protracted operations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the concept of agility in humanitarian logistics beyond emergency operations. Since the humanitarian logistics literature focuses primarily on emergencies and sees longer term and regular operations as being conducted in relatively stable and predictable environments, agile practices are usually not associated with humanitarian protracted operations. Therefore, this paper explores the logistics and supply chain environment in such operations in order to identify their basic features and determine if agility is an important requirement. Design/methodology/approach – Using a case study of the United Nations World Food Programme, the authors collected and analysed qualitative and quantitative data on the characteristics of protracted operations, the risks and uncertainties most frequently encountered, their impact, and the ways that field logisticians manage contingencies. Findings – The research demonstrates that unpredictability and disruptions exist in protracted operations. Therefore, short-term operational adjustments and agile practices are needed in order to support the continuity of humanitarian deliveries. Research limitations/implications – Future research should focus on a wider range of humanitarian organisations and move from a descriptive to a prescriptive approach in order to inform practice. Notwithstanding these limitations, the study highlights the need for academics to broaden the scope of their research beyond emergencies and to address the specific needs of humanitarian organisations involved in longer term operations. Originality/value – This paper is the first empirical research focusing exclusively on the logistics features of humanitarian protracted operations. It provides a more concrete and complete understanding of these operations.

Characterization of Sampling-While-Drilling Operations

SummaryThe while-drilling environment poses several potential challenges to acquiring representative formation-fluid samples; in particular, sampling times are expected to be restricted (perhaps severely) and dynamic filtration conditions are expected to predominate. With the aim of formulating effective strategies for sampling-while-drilling (SWD) operations, it is natural to seek answers to at least the following questions: When should samples be acquired—immediately after drilling the formation when invasion is shallowest, or after some time when the mudcake is more mature? What is the effect of circulation rate on sample quality? What levels of sample quality are achievable under while-drilling conditions?The first part of the paper describes the SWD tool used to investigate the questions posed. The tool is composed of the following components: a probe module; a pump-out module, which contains within it fluid-property sensors, including a resistivity cell and a 10-channel optical spectrometer; sample-capture modules; and a power-generation module consisting of a dedicated mud turbine and alternator that provide the required pumping power to the sampling tool.The second part of the paper is devoted to the description and analysis of a series of tests performed to characterize SWD operations. In particular, the following aspects were studied for their effect on sampling efficiency and sample contamination: time after drilling, mud-circulation rate, ceasing and resuming pumping operations as a means of mitigating sticking risk during protracted pumping operations, and the integrity of samples captured under drilling conditions. All tests were performed in water-bearing formations drilled with a water-based mud. A wireline sampling (WLS) tool was run after the while-drilling tests were completed in order to compare the performance of the two sampling tools.The principal conclusions derived from the tests conducted are that present-day sampling technology can be made to survive and operate effectively under drilling conditions, and that there appear to be substantial advantages to acquiring samples soon after drilling a formation.

United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine: Warfighter research focusing on the past 25 years

The United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) celebrated its 50th anniversary on July 1, 2011. This article reviews its history, evolution, and transition of its research programs as well as its scientific and military accomplishments, emphasizing the past 25 yr. During the 1990s, USARIEM published a series of pocket guides providing guidance for sustaining Warfighter health and performance in Southwest Asia, Somalia, the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Haiti. Issues identified during Operation Desert Storm elicited research that improved nutritional guidelines for protracted desert operations; safer use of nuclear, chemical, and biological protective clothing; equipment, development, and fielding of efficient microclimate cooling systems; and effective evaluation of pharmaceuticals to protect soldiers from chemical and biological threats. During the first decade of the 21st century, USARIEM and the Department of the Army published official medical/performance doctrines for operations in the heat and cold and at high altitude. The current Global War on Terrorism focused research to improve doctrines for hot, cold, and high-altitude operations, reduce musculoskeletal training injuries, provide improved field nutrition, more efficient planning for operational water requirements, and improve both military clothing and materiel. This article also describes the critically important interactions and communications between USARIEM and deployed units and the benefits to Warfighters from this association. This report presents USARIEM's unique and world-class facilities, organizational changes, scientific and support personnel, and major research accomplishments, including the publication of 2,200 scientific papers over the past 25 yr.

Food Aid and Dependency: Implications for Emergency Food Security Assessments

Discussions on food aid and dependency often draw on what appears to be a broad body of evidence, but closer inspection reveals that much of this does not in fact demonstrate a causal link between the two. This desk review has three objectives: (i) to identify the pathways through which negative dependency might arise; (ii) to outline how the targeting and management of food aid might affect the likelihood of negative dependency as a result of emergency operations or follow-on protracted relief and recovery operations; and (iii) to suggest indicators that assessment teams might employ in context-sensitive evaluations to reduce the risk of fostering negative dependency through food aid.

Special Relationships: British Higher Education and the Global Marketplace

Americans living in England are sometimes inspired by a sense of belated recognition, a desire to claim the place as their own through an imagined return to an ancestral or a spiritual homeland. Nathaniel Hawthorne was hardly enamored of English life when he took up residence in Liverpool in 1853; nonetheless, after two years' stay he writes of a “latent” recognition: “I suppose there is still latent in us Americans (even of two centuries date, and more, like myself) an adaptation to the English climate, which makes it like native soil and air to us” (121-22). But even as Hawthorne became more at home in England, his contentment was disturbed by the political realities of living in the United Kingdom-an imperial entity created by an act of Parliament in 1801. Appearing at the edges of the detailed travel descriptions in the notebooks are lingering resentments over previous British-American conflicts and a dislike of the colonizer mentality. Writing in October 1854, during the CrimeanWar, Hawthorne adopts the tone of an expatriate's disdain: “Success makes an Englishman intolerable; and already, on the mistaken idea that the way was open to a prosperous conclusion to this war, the Times had begun to throw out menaces against America. I shall never love England till she sues to us for help” (91). Hawthorne's reference is to two Times articles that are worth citing here, in that they seem to prefigure our era of “precision warfare” and triumphalist national self-regard: “The incidents of this [Crimean] war have already immeasurably increased the mutual confidence and respect of two nations [France and Britain] which have just shown they are the most powerful states in the world,” declared the Times on 4 October. The following day it stated:The lessons learned at Bomarsund and Sebastopol will not be forgotten, for they have introduced a new era in warfare by throwing doubt on places before deemed impregnable, and showing that the promptitude of an attack supported by the engines of modern warfare may supercede the more protracted operations of former sieges. The rapid triumphs which are wonderful now would have been impossible before.(qtd. in Hawthorne 632)

Preparing for information‐age conflict: Part 2 doctrinal and strategic dimensions

Across the spectrum of Information‐Age conflict, from social activism at one end to active military operations at the other, ‘swarming’ is emerging as an optimal doctrine for actualizing the potential of small, dispersed, networked groups using new information technologies. Swarms will feature a capability for ‘sustainable pulsing’ ‐ manœuvring separately, while combining on a particular object or target simultaneously, from all directions. This will be found both on battlefields, where decentralized, networked command and control will unleash the power of a BattleSwarm ‐ a possible successor to the twentieth‐century blitzkrieg form of war ‐ and in ‘global civil society’ actions, as seen in the campaign to ban landmines and in the protracted information operations to deter the Mexican government from using force against the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas. Achieving the organizational and doctrinal shifts we discuss will require unprecedented levels of information sharing. At the level of grand strategy, democratic states are advised to emphasize ‘guarded openness’ ‐ to remain open politically, economically and even militarily (to allies, especially), while creating mechanisms for guardedness as a ‘filtering system’ in order to mitigate the risks inherent in pursuing open information strategies. Improving relations between state and nonstate actors may prove a crucial challenge. Ultimately, the doctrinal and strategic ideas we raise imply calling for a ‘revolution in diplomatic affairs’ to match today's ‘revolution in military affairs’. Although power politics are not becoming obsolete, the classic model of realpolitik no longer quite fits the new realities; it will give way to what we call ‘noopolitik’ ‐ a new form of world politics in which the balance of power is superseded by the ‘balance of knowledge’.

Effect of surgery under general anaesthesia on antipyrine clearance.

1 The effect of surgery under general anaesthesia on drug metabolism was investigated in man. The activity of hepatic drug-metabolizing enzymes was evaluated by measurement of antipyrine clearance, before surgery and 3 days after surgery, in eighteen patients. 2 In those patients in whom the operation lasted 2 h or less, the postoperative clearance of antipyrine was significantly (P less than 0.05) increased by 48%; in those patients in whom the operation lasted 2--4 h, it was non-significantly decreased by 36%; in those patients in whom the operation lasted more than 4 h, it was significantly decreased by 47% (P less than 0.01). 3 It is concluded (a) that short operations are followed by increased activity of hepatic drug-metabolizing enzymes, whereas (b) protracted operations are followed by decreased activity. It is suggested (a) that the former effect may be a consequence of enzyme induction by drugs used for premedication and anaesthesia, whereas (b) the latter effect may be the result of major surgical trauma.

How Long Did Vespasian Serve in Britain?

D UDLEY and Webster2 state that Vespasian left Britain in A.D. 44, the year following the invasion, in order to attend Claudius' triumph in Rome3 and receive the triumphalia ornamenta. Webster adheres to this view in a recently published article,4 and it has been adopted elsewhere.5 Such a view drastically curtails the duration of Vespasian's command in Britain.6 This in itself is not perhaps a serious objection to it, even though Suetonius' record of Vespasian's campaign7 suggests protracted operations. There are other objections that are far more serious.

The effect of inhaling dilute nitrous oxide upon recent memory and time estimation.

THE STAGE OF ANALGESIA with amnesia which occurs with the inhalation of anaesthetic agents was recognized very soon after the il}troduction of ether. John Snow (1) described analgesia as the second degree of narcotism in which the pain of surgical operations was usually not felt. If there were responses to painful stimuli, they were either not remembered or recollected as having occurred in a dream. It is also of interest to rlote that he did not.-~hink it was necessary to mainsain deeper anaesthes{a for the greater part of protracted operations. The recent work of Summerfield and Steinberg (2) has made it clear that relatively small quantities of nitrous oxide in the inspired air can interfere with ~he establishment of new memories. By testing the ability of human subjects to learn nonsense syllables, they have demonstrated that inhalation of a mixture of 30 per cent nitrous oxide in oxygen retards the learning process; at the same time, the presence of the anaesthetic appears to lock previous memory traces into the nervous svstem so that information acquired prior to tile administratiot~ of ~itrous oxide is forgotten less rapidly that it is by stibjects breathing air. We undertook our own ex~)eriments upon the effects of light nitrous oxide anaesthesia for two reasons, the one academic and the other practical. In the first place, it seemed that an investigation of any controllable procedure that interfered with learning might ultimately reveal something of the nature of ]earning mechanisms at the cellular level. Secondly, the current practice of combining light general anaesthesia with muscular relaxants has raised the question--how light should tile anaesthetic be? it se,ems clear that the only requirement from the patient's point of view is, that anaesthesia should be su~Ecient to produce amnesia for the period of operation. Artusio (3) has described the stage of amnesia produced by the inhalation of diethvl ether and its use in major cardiac surgery. Our first attempts to il~vestigate the influence of N,,O on the learning process were made in 1950. \Ve were, therefore, tln;_iware of the work of Summerfield and Stc.inberg (2) which was tmblished in 1957. In this publication the) showed clearly (hat the effect of N._,() on subjects learning nollsense syllables was to decrease, the rate and to increase the retention of learning. These observations were entirely consistent with our own preliminary findi~lgs and we therefore turned our attentio~l to other effects of Net) inhalation. Thus the majority of the experimental results reported below describe a disturbance induced by nitrous oxide in estimates of the passage of time by human subjects and cats. Nevertheless those few ~Krom the \Vellcome Reaeart h [)epartment of Anaesthesia and 1he Department of Physiology, McGill I'niversity, Montreal.

MECHANICAL ILEUS COMPLICATING PREGNANCY

Mechanical obstruction, or ileus of the large or small intestine, is not infrequently encountered. Late diagnosis, together with imperfect technic, or late protracted operations, may be responsible for a high death-rate in all cases of this character. Refinement in diagnosis, with a perfected, rapid technic, will produce a marked reduction in this mortality. Naunyn reports a recovery of 75 per cent. of all patients with ileus operated on the first or second day of the attack, but the mortality was very great in all patients operated on the third day or later. This is verified by an analysis of cases reported during the past year as listed in the index. Very few cases are reported of ileus occurring during pregnancy. Williams reports two cases of intestinal obstruction complicating pregnancy. In one an intussusception occurred at the site of a tuberculous ulcer; the second was due to constriction by peritoneal adhesions