Total Resource Requirements Research Articles

The hidden cost of excess capabilities: a threat to future military readiness

ABSTRACT There is an often-neglected aspect of defence and military planning: the presence of excess and excessive capabilities in certain areas, despite existing capability gaps elsewhere. Focusing on Estonia's recent experiences, the analysis reveals how unchecked excesses can lead to unwanted resource drain. The study highlights the critical need to address the risks associated with surplus capabilities, which can cause cost inefficiencies and hinder force development. Findings from the Estonian case study indicate that excess capabilities within the existing force structure accounted for an average of 10–25% of total resource requirements, and in the context of certain capabilities, this excess was even more. These findings are relevant to both military and non-military contexts and underscore the importance of continuous reassessment and optimization of resource use.

Current costs & projected financial needs of India's Universal Immunization Programme.

Background & objectives:India's Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) is one of the largest programmes in the world in terms of quantities of vaccines administered, number of beneficiaries, number of immunization sessions, and geographical extent and diversity of areas covered. Strategic planning for the Programme requires credible information on the cost of achieving the objectives and the financial resources needed at national, State, and district levels. We present here expenditures on immunization services in India in 2012 (baseline) and projected costs for five years (2013-2017).Methods:Data were collected from the Immunization Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, and immunization partners, such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF. The cost components were immunization personnel, vaccines and injection supplies, transportation, trainings, social mobilization, advocacy and communication activities, disease surveillance, Programme management, maintenance of cold chain and other equipment, and capital costs.Results:Total baseline expenditure was 3,446 crore [1 crore = 10 million] (US$718 million), including shared personnel costs. In 2012, the government paid for 90 per cent of the Programme. Total resource requirements for 2013-2017 are 34,336 crore (US$ 5, 282 million). Allocations for vaccines increase from 511 crore in 2013 to 3,587 crore in 2017 as new vaccines are assumed to be introduced in the Programme.Interpretation & conclusions:The projections show that the government immunization budget will be double in 2017 as compared to 2013. It will increase from 4,570 crore in 2013 to 9,451 crore in 2017.

Addressing the Unmet Need for ART among HIV+ Women and Newborns in Cameroon through Strengthening the Supply Chain of PMTCT Commodities

Background: The Government of Cameroon and its partners have made major investments in the last decade in prevention, treatment, and care of HIV-infected patients. However, unmet need for antiretroviral therapy (ART) among HIV-positive pregnant women remains high at 66%. Critical to satisfying this need is ensuring adequate availability of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) commodities for rollout of new Option B+ guidelines. The Cameroon supply system consists of a cost recovery system for essential medicines and other health commodities and a free-of-charge system for priority commodities including those for PMTCT and ART. This study examines options for improving the supply and availability of these commodities. Method: Supply chain (SC) operational data was collected in July 2014 from central (CENAME) and 4 regional warehouses (CAPRs); 10 district stores; and 30 service delivery points (SDPs), including ART and PMTCT sites. The study also included seven central private-sector logistics firms. In addition, SC cost data was obtained from CENAME and CAPRs financial statements audited in 2013. Data collected served for analysis of three options to improve effectiveness of delivering PMTCT commodities, based on the four variables detailed in Figure 2.4.1. Results: Asset utilization within the cost recovery system ranged between 73% and 89% while inventory turnover was at 1.5. Therefore, a reliable supply of medicines to SDPs is ensured. However, for PMTCT and ART commodities, distribution to the SDPs was unreliable (in 2013, 40% of prescriptions remained unfilled). Meanwhile, results of the options analysis indicated that the model of CAPRs delivering PMTCT commodities to SDPs was the most desirable. Although the distance traveled was higher, the need for network storage space was minimal. Moreover, its total cost and human resource requirements were more favorable. Conclusion: As a result of disseminating the findings, the Ministry of Health adopted Option 2. PMTCT free-of-charge commodities are also amenable to being managed within the existing effective cost recovery system.

A systematic approach for optimized bypass configurations for application-specific embedded processors

The diversity of today's mobile applications requires embedded processor cores with a high resource efficiency, that means, the devices should provide a high performance at low area requirements and power consumption. The fine-grained parallelism supported by multiple functional units of VLIW architectures offers a high throughput at reasonable low clock frequencies compared to single-core RISC processors. To efficiently utilize the processor pipeline, common system architectures have to cope with data hazards due to data dependencies between consecutive operations. On the one hand, such hazards can be resolved by complex forwarding circuits (i.e., a pipeline bypass) which forward intermediate results to a subsequent instruction. On the other hand, the pipeline bypass can strongly affect or even dominate the total resource requirements and degrade the maximum clock frequency. In this work the CoreVA VLIW architecture is used for the development and the analysis of application-specific bypass configurations. It is shown that many paths of a comprehensive bypass system are rarely used and may not be required for certain applications. For this reason, several strategies have been implemented to enhance the efficiency of the total system by introducing application-specific bypass configurations. The configuration can be carried out statically by only implementing required paths or at runtime by dynamically reconfiguring the hardware. An algorithm is proposed which derives an optimized configuration by iteratively disabling single bypass paths. The adaptation of these application-specific bypass configurations allows for a reduction of the critical path by 26%. As a result, the execution time and energy requirements could be reduced by up to 21.5%. Using Dynamic Frequency Scaling (DFS) and dynamic deactivation/reactivation of bypass paths allows for a runtime reconfiguration of the bypass system. This ensures the highest efficiency while processing varying applications.

Reutilisation-extended material flows and circular economy in China

Circular economy (CE), with its basic principle of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, has been determined as the key strategy for the national development plan by the Chinese government. Given the economy-wide material flow analysis (EW-MFA) that leaves the inner flow of resource reutilisation unidentified, the reutilisation-extended EW-MFA is first introduced to evaluate and analyse the material input, solid waste generation, and reutilisation simultaneously. The total amount of comprehensive reutilisation (CR) is divided into three sub-flows, namely, reutilisation, recycle, and reuse. Thus, this model is used to investigate the resource CR in China from 2000 to 2010. China’s total amount of CR and its sub-flows, as well as the CR rate, remain to have a general upward trend. By the year 2010, about 60% of the overall solid waste generation had already been reutilised, and more than 20% of the total resource requirement was reutilised resource. Moreover, the growth patterns of the CR sub flows show different characteristics.Interpretations of resource reutilisation-related laws and regulations of CE and the corresponding policy suggestions are proposed based on the results.

Total Resource Requirements-Based Priority Queuing Scheme for DS/CDMA Cellular Networks

We propose and analyze a priority queuing scheme that gives priority in the same class of calls according to their total resource requirements (TRRs). The proposed scheme gives a higher priority to the calls that have a lower TRR over the calls that have a higher TRR. The numerical results show that the proposed priority queuing scheme provides better performance than the traditional queuing schemes in call blocking probability.

Hospital inpatient self-administration of medicine programmes: a critical literature review

The Department of Health, pharmaceutical and nursing bodies have advocated the benefits of self-administration programmes (SAPs), but their implementation within UK hospitals has been limited. Perceived barriers are: anticipated increased workload, insufficient resources and patient safety concerns. This review aims to discover if benefits of SAPs are supported in the literature in relation to risk and resource implications. Electronic databases were searched up to March 2004. Published English language articles that described and evaluated implementation of an SAP were included. Outcomes reported were: compliance measures, errors, knowledge, patient satisfaction, and nursing and pharmacy time. Most of the 51 papers reviewed had methodological flaws. SAPs varied widely in content and structure. Twelve studies (10 controlled) measured compliance by tablet counts. Of 7 studies subjected to statistical analysis, four demonstrated a significant difference in compliance between SAP and controls. Eight studies (5 controlled) measured errors as an outcome. Of the two evaluated statistically, only one demonstrated significantly fewer medication errors in the SAP group than in controls. Seventeen papers (11 controlled) studied the effect of SAPs on patients' medication knowledge. Ten of the 11 statistically analysed studies showed that SAP participants knew significantly more about some aspects of their medication than did controls. Seventeen studies (5 controlled), measured patient satisfaction. Two studies were statistically analysed and these studies suggested that patients were satisfied and preferred SAP. Seven papers studied pharmacy time, three studied nursing time but results were not compared to controls. The paucity of well-designed studies, flawed methodology and inadequate reporting in many papers make conclusions hard to draw. Conclusive evidence that SAPs improve compliance was not provided. Although patients participating in SAPs make errors, small numbers of patients are often responsible for a large number of errors. Whilst most studies suggest that SAPs increase patient's knowledge in part, it is difficult to separate out the effect of the educational component of many SAPs. Most patients who participated in SAPs were satisfied with their care and many would choose to take part in a SAP in the future. No studies measured the total resource requirement of implementing and maintaining a SAP.

Financial implications of skilled attendance at delivery in Nepal

To measure costs and willingness-to-pay for delivery care services in 8 districts of Nepal. Household costs were used to estimate total resource requirements to finance: (1) the current pattern of service use; (2) all women to deliver in a health facility; (3) skilled attendance at home deliveries with timely referral of complicated cases to a facility offering comprehensive obstetric services. The average cost to a household of a home delivery ranged from 410 RS (5.43 dollars) (with a friend or relative attending) to 879 RS (11.63 dollars) (with a health worker). At a facility the average fee for a normal delivery was 678 RS (8.97 dollars). When additional charges, opportunity and transport costs were added, the total amount paid exceeded 5,300 RS (70 dollars). For a caesarean section the total household cost was more than 11,400 RS (150 dollars). Based on these figures, the cost of financing current practice is 45 RS (0.60 dollar) per capita. A policy of universal institutional delivery would cost 238 RS (3.15 dollars) per capita while a policy of skilled attendance at home with early referral of cases from remote areas would cost around 117 RS (1.55 dollars) per capita. These are significant sums in the context of a health budget of about 400 RS (5 dollars) per capita. Conclusions The financial cost of developing a skilled attendance strategy in Nepal is substantial. The mechanisms to direct funding to women in need must to be improved, pricing needs to be more transparent, and payment exemptions in public facilities must be better financed if we are to overcome both supply and demand-side barriers to care seeking.

Proxy-Assisted Periodic Broadcast Architecture for Large-Scale Video Streaming

Many multimedia applications rely on video streaming techniques. However, large scale video delivery is still challenging since it requires a large amount of resources. In this paper we propose a proxy-assisted periodic broadcast architecture for video delivery to a large number of clients over the Internet. Our video delivery technique is based on a combination of periodic broadcast by central server and proxy server caching. A proxy server caches either part or the entire video based on the video popularity. A video stored in the central server is partitioned into two parts, a server prefix and a server suffix, based on the aggregated demand for the video from all communities. In principle, the server prefix is delivered by unicast and the server suffix is delivered by periodic broadcast. The combination of proxy prefix and server prefix defines a wide spectrum of different video delivery modes. The transmission of a video can be either partially unicast or partially period broadcast depending on the relationship between proxy prefix and server prefix. We further define and solve the optimization problems for proxy prefix selection and server prefix selection in order to minimize the total resource requirements. Performance of our system is evaluated through a number of tests.

Grouping customers for better allocation of resources to serve correlated demands

In this paper, we discuss a common decision-making problem arising in the allocation and decentralization of resources under uncertain demand. The total resource requirements for a given service level equals the sum of mean demands plus a safety factor multiplied by the standard deviations of demands. Since the demand means are unaffected by any customer groupings, we attempt to exploit demand correlations for developing customer groups such that the sum of the standard deviations over all groups is minimized. A concave minimization model with binary variables is developed for this purpose and a heuristic partitioning method is proposed to efficiently solve the model. The model is appropriate for both manufacturing and service management with potential applications in salesforce allocation, grouping of machines in job shops, and allocation of plant capacities. Scope and purpose In this paper, it is shown that when demands are correlated, complete aggregation of all customers in a single-service center may require more resources than is necessary to provide a given service level. A model and a solution technique are proposed to optimally aggregate/disaggregate customers into groups such that total resource requirements are minimized. Many potential applications of the proposed technique in centralization/decentralization of resources are discussed.

The asymptotic value-to-capacity ratio for the multi-class stochastic knapsack problem

We consider a stochastic knapsack problem that packs multiple classes of random items. The pairs of profit and resource requirement for items of the same class are independent and identically distributed. However, such pairs for different classes of items are independent but not necessarily identically distributed. We investigate convergence and the asymptotic value of the ratio of the knapsack value function to the capacity when the capacity increases. We consider two growth models for the multi-class stochastic knapsack problem, one where the number of available items grows proportionally to the capacity and the other one where the available items are sampled until their total resource requirement does not exceed the capacity. By extending the results of Meanti et al. on a single class of random items, we show that for each growth model, the ratio converges almost surely to a computable constant. For special cases where resource requirements or profit coefficients are deterministic, we present simple interpretations on the asymptotic values. Finally, we present an exponential order upperbound on the tail probability of the ratio.

Two-Machine Open Shops with Renewable Resources

In open shops with renewable resources, an operation may require additional resources, besides a machine, for its execution. All resources required by the operation are allocated to it all the time during its execution. At no time may total resource requirements exceed resource capacities. We consider the problem of minimizing makespan in a two-machine open shop with a single renewable resource. We show that optimal nonpreemptive schedules are not longer than optimal preemptive schedules, which we then translate into a polynomial time algorithm for the makespan minimization problem. This is an important generalization of a well-known result obtained by Gonzalez and Sahni (Gonzalez, G., S. Sahni. 1976. Open shop scheduling to minimize finish time. J. ACM 23 665–679.) for the two-machine open shop without additional resources. We also study the problem of minimizing makespan in a two-machine open shop with at least two different resources. In this case, optimal nonpreemptive schedules may be longer than optimal preemptive ones. We show that this makes the makespan minimization problem NP-hard.

Economic analysis at the global level: a resource requirement model for HIV prevention in developing countries

Agencies operating at the international level have a need for economic analysis to help develop global health policies and determine resource requirements to support their advocacy efforts. This paper presents work commissioned by the Global Programme on AIDS to estimate the total resource requirements of implementing a package of HIV prevention strategies in developing countries. The modelling approach identified a hypothetical package which should be implemented and developed a set of assumptions relating the size, number and coverage of programmes required for each strategy to a set of demographic and other characteristics of individual countries. Costs were attached to estimate the total costs of the package for individual countries, regions and the developing world. Results are presented for regions and their implications discussed. Conclusions are drawn on the value of this type of modelling approach to estimating resource requirements.

Project scheduling with resource constraints: A branch and bound approach

This paper describes a branch and bound algorithm for project scheduling with resource constraints. The algorithmis based on the idea of using disjunctive arcs for resolving conflicts that are created whenever sets of activities have to be scheduled whose total resource requirements exceed the resource availabilities in some periods. Four lower bounds are examined. The first is a simple lower bound based on longest path computations. The second and third bounds are derived from a relaxed integer programming formulation of the problem. The second bound is based on the Linear Programming relaxation with the addition of cutting planes, and the third bound is based on a Lagrangean relaxation of the formulation. This last relaxation involves a problem which is a generalization of the longest path computation and for which an efficient, though not polynomial, algorithm is given. The fourth bound is based on the disjunctive arcs used to model the problem as a graph. We report computational results on the performance of each bound on randomly generated problems involving up to 25 activities and 3 resources.

Multi-Project Scheduling: Categorization of Heuristic Rules Performance

Application of heuristic solution procedures to the practical problem of project scheduling has previously been studied by numerous researchers. However, there is little consensus about their findings, and the practicing manager is currently at a loss as to which scheduling rule to use. Furthermore, since no categorization process was developed, it is assumed that once a rule is selected it must be used throughout the whole project. This research breaks away from this tradition by providing a categorization process based on two powerful project summary measures. The first measure identifies the location of the peak of total resource requirements and the second measure identifies the rate of utilization of each resource type. The performance of the rules are classified according to values of these two measures, and it is shown that a rule introduced by this research performs significantly better on most categories of projects.

Multiple Resource–Constrained Scheduling Using Branch and Bound

Abstract This paper focuses upon the problem of assigning feasible start times to a set of activities making up a project, static job shop, or static flowship type schedules under two constraint sets: (1) no activity may be started until all activities technologically established as its predecessor set have been completed, and (2) the total resource requirements of all activities in process at any time in the schedule must not exceed the level of availability for each of the multiple resource classes. The solution procedure used for these problems is branch and bound, and the resulting complete schedules are optimized with an objective of minimizing the completion time of the entire set of activities. Computational results on tests conducted on a number of randomly generated problem sets with up to 60 activities and six resource classes are presented.