Analysis, calculation and utilization of the k-balance attribute in interdependent networks

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zheng; Li, Qing; Wang, Dan; Xu, Mingwei

2018-05-01

Interdependent networks, where two networks depend on each other, are becoming more and more significant in modern systems. From previous work, it can be concluded that interdependent networks are more vulnerable than a single network. The robustness in interdependent networks deserves special attention. In this paper, we propose a metric of robustness from a new perspective-the balance. First, we define the balance-coefficient of the interdependent system. Based on precise analysis and derivation, we prove some significant theories and provide an efficient algorithm to compute the balance-coefficient. Finally, we propose an optimal solution to reduce the balance-coefficient to enhance the robustness of the given system. Comprehensive experiments confirm the efficiency of our algorithms.

Energy Efficient Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks Through Balanced Clustering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christos Douligeris

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The wide utilization of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs is obstructed by the severely limited energy constraints of the individual sensor nodes. This is the reason why a large part of the research in WSNs focuses on the development of energy efficient routing protocols. In this paper, a new protocol called Equalized Cluster Head Election Routing Protocol (ECHERP, which pursues energy conservation through balanced clustering, is proposed. ECHERP models the network as a linear system and, using the Gaussian elimination algorithm, calculates the combinations of nodes that can be chosen as cluster heads in order to extend the network lifetime. The performance evaluation of ECHERP is carried out through simulation tests, which evince the effectiveness of this protocol in terms of network energy efficiency when compared against other well-known protocols.

Balance ability and athletic performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Hrysomallis, Con

2011-03-01

The relationship between balance ability and sport injury risk has been established in many cases, but the relationship between balance ability and athletic performance is less clear. This review compares the balance ability of athletes from different sports, determines if there is a difference in balance ability of athletes at different levels of competition within the same sport, determines the relationship of balance ability with performance measures and examines the influence of balance training on sport performance or motor skills. Based on the available data from cross-sectional studies, gymnasts tended to have the best balance ability, followed by soccer players, swimmers, active control subjects and then basketball players. Surprisingly, no studies were found that compared the balance ability of rifle shooters with other athletes. There were some sports, such as rifle shooting, soccer and golf, where elite athletes were found to have superior balance ability compared with their less proficient counterparts, but this was not found to be the case for alpine skiing, surfing and judo. Balance ability was shown to be significantly related to rifle shooting accuracy, archery shooting accuracy, ice hockey maximum skating speed and simulated luge start speed, but not for baseball pitching accuracy or snowboarding ranking points. Prospective studies have shown that the addition of a balance training component to the activities of recreationally active subjects or physical education students has resulted in improvements in vertical jump, agility, shuttle run and downhill slalom skiing. A proposed mechanism for the enhancement in motor skills from balance training is an increase in the rate of force development. There are limited data on the influence of balance training on motor skills of elite athletes. When the effectiveness of balance training was compared with resistance training, it was found that resistance training produced superior performance results for

Heider balance in human networks

Science.gov (United States)

Gawroński, P.; Kułakowski, K.

2005-07-01

Recently, a continuous dynamics was proposed to simulate dynamics of interpersonal relations in a society represented by a fully connected graph. The final state of such a society was found to be identical with the so-called Heider balance (HB), where the society is divided into two mutually hostile groups. In the continuous model, a polarization of opinions was found in HB. Here we demonstrate that the polarization occurs also in Barabási-Albert networks, where the Heider balance is not necessarily present. In the second part of this work we demonstrate the results of our formalism, when applied to reference examples: the Southern women and the Zachary club.

A Mixed Transmission Strategy to Achieve Energy Balancing in Wireless Sensor Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Tong; Gu, Tao; Jin, Ning

2017-01-01

In this paper, we investigate the problem of energy balanced data collection in wireless sensor networks, aiming to balance energy consumption among all sensor nodes during the data propagation process. Energy balanced data collection can potentially save energy consumption and prolong network...... lifetime, and hence, it has many practical implications for sensor network design and deployment. The traditional hop-by-hop transmission model allows a sensor node to propagate its packets in a hop-by-hop manner toward the sink, resulting in poor energy balancing for the entire network. To address...... the problem, we apply a slice-based energy model, and divide the problem into inter-slice and intra-slice energy balancing problems. We then propose a probability-based strategy named inter-slice mixed transmission protocol and an intra-slice forwarding technique to address each of the problems. We propose...

Response variability in balanced cortical networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lerchner, Alexander; Ursta, C.; Hertz, J.

2006-01-01

We study the spike statistics of neurons in a network with dynamically balanced excitation and inhibition. Our model, intended to represent a generic cortical column, comprises randomly connected excitatory and inhibitory leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, driven by excitatory input from an external...

OPTIMAL CONFIGURATION OF A COMMAND AND CONTROL NETWORK: BALANCING PERFORMANCE AND RECONFIGURATION CONSTRAINTS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

L. DOWELL

1999-08-01

The optimization of the configuration of communications and control networks is important for assuring the reliability and performance of the networks. This paper presents techniques for determining the optimal configuration for such a network in the presence of communication and connectivity constraints. reconfiguration to restore connectivity to a data-fusion network following the failure of a network component.

Sentiment Polarization and Balance among Users in Online Social Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hillmann, Robert; Trier, Matthias

2012-01-01

Communication within online social network applications enables users to express and share sentiments electronically. Existing studies examined the existence or distribution of sentiments in online communication at a general level or in small-observed groups. Our paper extends this research...... by analyzing sentiment exchange within social networks from an ego-network perspective. We draw from research on social influence and social attachment to develop theories of node polarization, balance effects and sentiment mirroring within communication dyads. Our empirical analysis covers a multitude...... of social networks in which the sentiment valence of all messages was determined. Subsequently we studied ego-networks of focal actors (ego) and their immediate contacts. Results support our theories and indicate that actors develop polarized sentiments towards individual peers but keep sentiment in balance...

Stochastic solution of population balance equations for reactor networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Menz, William J.; Akroyd, Jethro; Kraft, Markus

2014-01-01

This work presents a sequential modular approach to solve a generic network of reactors with a population balance model using a stochastic numerical method. Full-coupling to the gas-phase is achieved through operator-splitting. The convergence of the stochastic particle algorithm in test networks is evaluated as a function of network size, recycle fraction and numerical parameters. These test cases are used to identify methods through which systematic and statistical error may be reduced, including by use of stochastic weighted algorithms. The optimal algorithm was subsequently used to solve a one-dimensional example of silicon nanoparticle synthesis using a multivariate particle model. This example demonstrated the power of stochastic methods in resolving particle structure by investigating the transient and spatial evolution of primary polydispersity, degree of sintering and TEM-style images. Highlights: •An algorithm is presented to solve reactor networks with a population balance model. •A stochastic method is used to solve the population balance equations. •The convergence and efficiency of the reported algorithms are evaluated. •The algorithm is applied to simulate silicon nanoparticle synthesis in a 1D reactor. •Particle structure is reported as a function of reactor length and time

OPTIMAL CONFIGURATION OF A COMMAND AND CONTROL NETWORK: BALANCING PERFORMANCE AND RECONFIGURATION CONSTRAINTS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

L. DOWELL

1999-07-01

The optimization of the configuration of communications and control networks is important for assuring the reliability and performance of the networks. This paper presents techniques for determining the optimal configuration for such a network in the presence of communication and connectivity constraints.

Maintaining the power balance in an "empty network"

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Reza, M.; Dominguez, A.O.; Schavemaker, P.H.; Kling, W.L.

2006-01-01

This paper presents the concept of an empty network and shows how the power balance can be maintained in such a system. In this study, an empty network is defined as a power system in which no rotating mass is present; all generators are grid-connected via power electronic interfaces. One generator

Improved population balance model for straining-dominant deep bed filtration using network calculations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yuan, Hao; You, Zhenjiang; Shapiro, Alexander

2013-01-01

Colloidal-suspension flow in porous media is modelled simultaneously by the large scale population balance equations and by the microscale network model. The phenomenological parameter of the correlation length in the population balance model is determined from the network modelling. It is found...... out that the correlation length in the population balance model depends on the particle size. This dependency calculated by two-dimensional network has the same tendency as that obtained from the laboratory tests in engineered porous media....

Balancing energy consumption with hybrid clustering and routing strategy in wireless sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Zhezhuang; Chen, Liquan; Liu, Ting; Cao, Lianyang; Chen, Cailian

2015-10-20

Multi-hop data collection in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a challenge issue due to the limited energy resource and transmission range of wireless sensors. The hybrid clustering and routing (HCR) strategy has provided an effective solution, which can generate a connected and efficient cluster-based topology for multi-hop data collection in WSNs. However, it suffers from imbalanced energy consumption, which results in the poor performance of the network lifetime. In this paper, we evaluate the energy consumption of HCR and discover an important result: the imbalanced energy consumption generally appears in gradient k = 1, i.e., the nodes that can communicate with the sink directly. Based on this observation, we propose a new protocol called HCR-1, which includes the adaptive relay selection and tunable cost functions to balance the energy consumption. The guideline of setting the parameters in HCR-1 is provided based on simulations. The analytical and numerical results prove that, with minor modification of the topology in Sensors 2015, 15 26584 gradient k = 1, the HCR-1 protocol effectively balances the energy consumption and prolongs the network lifetime.

Two Dimensional Array Based Overlay Network for Balancing Load of Peer-to-Peer Live Video Streaming

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ibrahimy, Abdullah Faruq Ibn; Rafiqul, Islam Md; Anwar, Farhat; Ibrahimy, Muhammad Ibn

2013-01-01

The live video data is streaming usually in a tree-based overlay network or in a mesh-based overlay network. In case of departure of a peer with additional upload bandwidth, the overlay network becomes very vulnerable to churn. In this paper, a two dimensional array-based overlay network is proposed for streaming the live video stream data. As there is always a peer or a live video streaming server to upload the live video stream data, so the overlay network is very stable and very robust to churn. Peers are placed according to their upload and download bandwidth, which enhances the balance of load and performance. The overlay network utilizes the additional upload bandwidth of peers to minimize chunk delivery delay and to maximize balance of load. The procedure, which is used for distributing the additional upload bandwidth of the peers, distributes the additional upload bandwidth to the heterogeneous strength peers in a fair treat distribution approach and to the homogeneous strength peers in a uniform distribution approach. The proposed overlay network has been simulated by Qualnet from Scalable Network Technologies and results are presented in this paper

Two Dimensional Array Based Overlay Network for Balancing Load of Peer-to-Peer Live Video Streaming

Science.gov (United States)

Faruq Ibn Ibrahimy, Abdullah; Rafiqul, Islam Md; Anwar, Farhat; Ibn Ibrahimy, Muhammad

2013-12-01

The live video data is streaming usually in a tree-based overlay network or in a mesh-based overlay network. In case of departure of a peer with additional upload bandwidth, the overlay network becomes very vulnerable to churn. In this paper, a two dimensional array-based overlay network is proposed for streaming the live video stream data. As there is always a peer or a live video streaming server to upload the live video stream data, so the overlay network is very stable and very robust to churn. Peers are placed according to their upload and download bandwidth, which enhances the balance of load and performance. The overlay network utilizes the additional upload bandwidth of peers to minimize chunk delivery delay and to maximize balance of load. The procedure, which is used for distributing the additional upload bandwidth of the peers, distributes the additional upload bandwidth to the heterogeneous strength peers in a fair treat distribution approach and to the homogeneous strength peers in a uniform distribution approach. The proposed overlay network has been simulated by Qualnet from Scalable Network Technologies and results are presented in this paper.

Balancing Relations and Results in Regional Networks of Public-Policy Implementation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klaster, E.; Wilderom, Celeste P.M.; Muntslag, Dennis R.

2017-01-01

Regional networks have become popular routes for central governments to translate national ambitions into regional policies and actions; but these networks face challenges, having to balance between the dual objectives of obtaining short-term goals and establishing enduring network relations. This

Active influence in dynamical models of structural balance in social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Summers, Tyler H.; Shames, Iman

2013-07-01

We consider a nonlinear dynamical system on a signed graph, which can be interpreted as a mathematical model of social networks in which the links can have both positive and negative connotations. In accordance with a concept from social psychology called structural balance, the negative links play a key role in both the structure and dynamics of the network. Recent research has shown that in a nonlinear dynamical system modeling the time evolution of “friendliness levels” in the network, two opposing factions emerge from almost any initial condition. Here we study active external influence in this dynamical model and show that any agent in the network can achieve any desired structurally balanced state from any initial condition by perturbing its own local friendliness levels. Based on this result, we also introduce a new network centrality measure for signed networks. The results are illustrated in an international-relations network using United Nations voting record data from 1946 to 2008 to estimate friendliness levels amongst various countries.

Software defined networks reactive flow programming and load balance switching

OpenAIRE

Καλλιανιώτης, Νικόλαος; Kallianiotis, Nikolaos

2017-01-01

This project serves as a Master Thesis as the requirements of the master’s programme Master of Digital Communications and Networks. It proposes load balancing algorithms applied to Software-Defined Networks to achieve the best possible resource utilisation of each of the links present in a network. The open-sources Opendaylight project and Floodlight project are used as SDN controllers, and the network is emulated using Mininet software

Waterfilling: Balancing the Tor network with maximum diversity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rochet Florentin

2017-04-01

Full Text Available We present the Waterfilling circuit selection method, which we designed in order to mitigate the risks of a successful end-to-end traffic correlation attack. Waterfilling proceeds by balancing the Tor network load as evenly as possible on endpoints of user paths. We simulate the use of Waterfilling thanks to the TorPS and Shadow tools. Applying several security metrics, we show that the adoption of Waterfilling considerably increases the number of nodes that an adversary needs to control in order to be able to mount a successful attack, while somewhat decreasing the minimum amount of bandwidth required to do so. Moreover, we evaluate Waterfilling in Shadow and show that it does not impact significantly the performance of the network. Furthermore, Waterfilling reduces the benefits that an attacker could obtain by hacking into a top bandwidth Tor relay, hence limiting the risks raised by such relays. Waterfilling does not require any major change in Tor, and can co-exist with the current circuit selection algorithm.

E-I balance emerges naturally from continuous Hebbian learning in autonomous neural networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Trapp, Philip; Echeveste, Rodrigo; Gros, Claudius

2018-06-12

Spontaneous brain activity is characterized in part by a balanced asynchronous chaotic state. Cortical recordings show that excitatory (E) and inhibitory (I) drivings in the E-I balanced state are substantially larger than the overall input. We show that such a state arises naturally in fully adapting networks which are deterministic, autonomously active and not subject to stochastic external or internal drivings. Temporary imbalances between excitatory and inhibitory inputs lead to large but short-lived activity bursts that stabilize irregular dynamics. We simulate autonomous networks of rate-encoding neurons for which all synaptic weights are plastic and subject to a Hebbian plasticity rule, the flux rule, that can be derived from the stationarity principle of statistical learning. Moreover, the average firing rate is regulated individually via a standard homeostatic adaption of the bias of each neuron's input-output non-linear function. Additionally, networks with and without short-term plasticity are considered. E-I balance may arise only when the mean excitatory and inhibitory weights are themselves balanced, modulo the overall activity level. We show that synaptic weight balance, which has been considered hitherto as given, naturally arises in autonomous neural networks when the here considered self-limiting Hebbian synaptic plasticity rule is continuously active.

Memory replay in balanced recurrent networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nikolay Chenkov

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Complex patterns of neural activity appear during up-states in the neocortex and sharp waves in the hippocampus, including sequences that resemble those during prior behavioral experience. The mechanisms underlying this replay are not well understood. How can small synaptic footprints engraved by experience control large-scale network activity during memory retrieval and consolidation? We hypothesize that sparse and weak synaptic connectivity between Hebbian assemblies are boosted by pre-existing recurrent connectivity within them. To investigate this idea, we connect sequences of assemblies in randomly connected spiking neuronal networks with a balance of excitation and inhibition. Simulations and analytical calculations show that recurrent connections within assemblies allow for a fast amplification of signals that indeed reduces the required number of inter-assembly connections. Replay can be evoked by small sensory-like cues or emerge spontaneously by activity fluctuations. Global-potentially neuromodulatory-alterations of neuronal excitability can switch between network states that favor retrieval and consolidation.

An economic model of friendship and enmity for measuring social balance in networks

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Kyu-Min; Shin, Euncheol; You, Seungil

2017-12-01

We propose a dynamic economic model of networks where agents can be friends or enemies with one another. This is a decentralized relationship model in that agents decide whether to change their relationships so as to minimize their imbalanced triads. In this model, there is a single parameter, which we call social temperature, that captures the degree to which agents care about social balance in their relationships. We show that the global structure of relationship configuration converges to a unique stationary distribution. Using this stationary distribution, we characterize the maximum likelihood estimator of the social temperature parameter. Since the estimator is computationally challenging to calculate from real social network datasets, we provide a simple simulation algorithm and verify its performance with real social network datasets.

Impact of Sink Node Placement onto Wireless Sensor Networks Performance Regarding Clustering Routing and Compressive Sensing Theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shima Pakdaman Tirani

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs consist of several sensor nodes with sensing, computation, and wireless communication capabilities. The energy constraint is one of the most important issues in these networks. Thus, the data-gathering process should be carefully designed to conserve the energy. In this situation, a load balancing strategy can enhance the resources utilization, and consequently, increase the network lifetime. Furthermore, recently, the sparse nature of data in WSNs has been motivated the use of the compressive sensing as an efficient data gathering technique. Using the compressive sensing theory significantly leads to decreasing the volume of the transmitted data. Taking the above challenges into account, the main goal of this paper is to jointly consider the compressive sensing method and the load-balancing in WSNs. In this regards, using the conventional network model, we analyze the network performance in several different states. These states challenge the sink location in term of the number of transmissions. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the load-balancing in the network performance.

The Impact of Social Networks on Students’ Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jusuf Zekiri

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study is to determine the impact of using social media and its impact on students’ performance and success. This research tries to identify the relationship between students’ use of social networks and their success in their studies. It tries also to find out whether time spent impacts students’ performance and success. Whether students use social media more for entertainment or for teaching and information sharing purposes. The paper uses a quantitative approach for collecting the primary data. The data was collected by surveying 255 respondents from South East European University. The data analyses were done by SPSS so" ware program. Cronbach alpha is used for testing the validity and reliability of variables used in this study. The hypotheses were tested using One Simple T-test. The obtained empirical results show that a great number of students are aware of advantages and disadvantages by the social media. Thus, due to a great percent of times spent on social networking activities, the performance and the success of students suffer setbacks which could lead to a poor performance and they might fail to create a balance between the social media and academic activities. Furthermore, it is about their addiction, the loss of time leading to consequences in their academic development, and they are also influenced to a great extent negatively by the social networking sites, because their attention is focused on chatting and music while their academic activities are neglected. Finally, based on the results of survey, we can conclude that impact of social media on the academic performance of students should focus more on the positive side than on the negative side to achieve balance. Hence, creating more pages for research and academic activities will enable students to improve their performance, thereby avoiding a distraction which leads to deviation from their academic work.

Lifetime Optimization of a Multiple Sink Wireless Sensor Network through Energy Balancing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tapan Kumar Jain

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The wireless sensor network consists of small limited energy sensors which are connected to one or more sinks. The maximum energy consumption takes place in communicating the data from the nodes to the sink. Multiple sink WSN has an edge over the single sink WSN where very less energy is utilized in sending the data to the sink, as the number of hops is reduced. If the energy consumed by a node is balanced between the other nodes, the lifetime of the network is considerably increased. The network lifetime optimization is achieved by restructuring the network by modifying the neighbor nodes of a sink. Only those nodes are connected to a sink which makes the total energy of the sink less than the threshold. This energy balancing through network restructuring optimizes the network lifetime. This paper depicts this fact through simulations done in MATLAB.

Predictive coding of dynamical variables in balanced spiking networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Boerlin, Martin; Machens, Christian K; Denève, Sophie

2013-01-01

Two observations about the cortex have puzzled neuroscientists for a long time. First, neural responses are highly variable. Second, the level of excitation and inhibition received by each neuron is tightly balanced at all times. Here, we demonstrate that both properties are necessary consequences of neural networks that represent information efficiently in their spikes. We illustrate this insight with spiking networks that represent dynamical variables. Our approach is based on two assumptions: We assume that information about dynamical variables can be read out linearly from neural spike trains, and we assume that neurons only fire a spike if that improves the representation of the dynamical variables. Based on these assumptions, we derive a network of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons that is able to implement arbitrary linear dynamical systems. We show that the membrane voltage of the neurons is equivalent to a prediction error about a common population-level signal. Among other things, our approach allows us to construct an integrator network of spiking neurons that is robust against many perturbations. Most importantly, neural variability in our networks cannot be equated to noise. Despite exhibiting the same single unit properties as widely used population code models (e.g. tuning curves, Poisson distributed spike trains), balanced networks are orders of magnitudes more reliable. Our approach suggests that spikes do matter when considering how the brain computes, and that the reliability of cortical representations could have been strongly underestimated.

Deep Constrained Siamese Hash Coding Network and Load-Balanced Locality-Sensitive Hashing for Near Duplicate Image Detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Weiming; Fan, Yabo; Xing, Junliang; Sun, Liang; Cai, Zhaoquan; Maybank, Stephen

2018-09-01

We construct a new efficient near duplicate image detection method using a hierarchical hash code learning neural network and load-balanced locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) indexing. We propose a deep constrained siamese hash coding neural network combined with deep feature learning. Our neural network is able to extract effective features for near duplicate image detection. The extracted features are used to construct a LSH-based index. We propose a load-balanced LSH method to produce load-balanced buckets in the hashing process. The load-balanced LSH significantly reduces the query time. Based on the proposed load-balanced LSH, we design an effective and feasible algorithm for near duplicate image detection. Extensive experiments on three benchmark data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of our deep siamese hash encoding network and load-balanced LSH.

Models and Tabu Search Metaheuristics for Service Network Design with Asset-Balance Requirements

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Michael Berliner; Crainic, T.G.; Madsen, Oli B.G.

2009-01-01

This paper focuses on a generic model for service network design, which includes asset positioning and utilization through constraints on asset availability at terminals. We denote these relations as "design-balance constraints" and focus on the design-balanced capacitated multicommodity network...... design model, a generalization of the capacitated multicommodity network design model generally used in service network design applications. Both arc-and cycle-based formulations for the new model are presented. The paper also proposes a tabu search metaheuristic framework for the arc-based formulation....... Results on a wide range of network design problem instances from the literature indicate the proposed method behaves very well in terms of computational efficiency and solution quality....

A General Self-Organized Tree-Based Energy-Balance Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Zhao; Wu, Jie; Zhang, Jie; Liu, Liefeng; Tian, Kaiyun

2014-04-01

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a system composed of a large number of low-cost micro-sensors. This network is used to collect and send various kinds of messages to a base station (BS). WSN consists of low-cost nodes with limited battery power, and the battery replacement is not easy for WSN with thousands of physically embedded nodes, which means energy efficient routing protocol should be employed to offer a long-life work time. To achieve the aim, we need not only to minimize total energy consumption but also to balance WSN load. Researchers have proposed many protocols such as LEACH, HEED, PEGASIS, TBC and PEDAP. In this paper, we propose a General Self-Organized Tree-Based Energy-Balance routing protocol (GSTEB) which builds a routing tree using a process where, for each round, BS assigns a root node and broadcasts this selection to all sensor nodes. Subsequently, each node selects its parent by considering only itself and its neighbors' information, thus making GSTEB a dynamic protocol. Simulation results show that GSTEB has a better performance than other protocols in balancing energy consumption, thus prolonging the lifetime of WSN.

Performance Modeling of Communication Networks with Markov Chains

CERN Document Server

Mo, Jeonghoon

2010-01-01

This book is an introduction to Markov chain modeling with applications to communication networks. It begins with a general introduction to performance modeling in Chapter 1 where we introduce different performance models. We then introduce basic ideas of Markov chain modeling: Markov property, discrete time Markov chain (DTMe and continuous time Markov chain (CTMe. We also discuss how to find the steady state distributions from these Markov chains and how they can be used to compute the system performance metric. The solution methodologies include a balance equation technique, limiting probab

A Balancing Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Network Based on the Assistance of Approaching Nodes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chengpei Tang

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Sensor node in wireless sensor network is a micro-embedded system with limited memory, energy and communication capabilities. Some nodes will run out of energy and exit the network earlier than other nodes because of the uneven energy consumption. This will lead to partial or complete paralysis of the whole wireless sensor network. A balancing algorithm based on the assistance of approaching nodes is proposed. Via the set theory, notes are divided into neighbor nodes set and approaching nodes set. Approaching nodes will help weaker nodes forward part of massages to balance energy consumption. Simulation result has verified the rationality and feasibility of the balancing algorithm.

Network Model for The Problem of Integer Balancing of a Fourdimensional Matrix

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. V. Smirnov

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The problem of integer balancing of a four-dimensional matrix is studied. The elements of the inner part (all four indices are greater than zero of the given real matrix are summed in each direction and each two- and three-dimensional section of the matrix; the total sum is also found. These sums are placed into the elements where one or more indices are equal to zero (according to the summing directions. The problem is to find an integer matrix of the same structure, which can be produced from the initial one by replacing the elements with the largest previous or the smallest following integer. At the same time, the element with four zero indices should be produced with standard rules of rounding - off. In the article the problem of finding the maximum multiple flow in the network of any natural multiplicity   is also studied. There are arcs of three types: ordinary arcs, multiple arcs and multi-arcs. Each multiple and multi-arc is a union of   linked arcs, which are adjusted with each other. The network constructing rules are described. The definitions of a divisible network and some associated subjects are stated. There are defined the basic principles for reducing the integer balancing problem of an  -dimensional matrix (  to the problem of finding the maximum flow in a divisible multiple network of multiplicity  . There are stated the rules for reducing the four-dimensional balancing problem to the maximum flow problem in the network of multiplicity 5. The algorithm of finding the maximum flow, which meets the solvability conditions for the integer balancing problem, is formulated for such a network.

Green IGP Link Weights for Energy-efficiency and Load-balancing in IP Backbone Networks

OpenAIRE

Francois, Frederic; Wang, Ning; Moessner, Klaus; Georgoulas, Stylianos; Xu, Ke

2013-01-01

The energy consumption of backbone networks has become a primary concern for network operators and regulators due to the pervasive deployment of wired backbone networks to meet the requirements of bandwidth-hungry applications. While traditional optimization of IGP link weights has been used in IP based load-balancing operations, in this paper we introduce a novel link weight setting algorithm, the Green Load-balancing Algorithm (GLA), which is able to jointly optimize both energy efficiency ...

A self-optimizing scheme for energy balanced routing in Wireless Sensor Networks using SensorAnt.

Science.gov (United States)

Shamsan Saleh, Ahmed M; Ali, Borhanuddin Mohd; Rasid, Mohd Fadlee A; Ismail, Alyani

2012-01-01

Planning of energy-efficient protocols is critical for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) because of the constraints on the sensor nodes' energy. The routing protocol should be able to provide uniform power dissipation during transmission to the sink node. In this paper, we present a self-optimization scheme for WSNs which is able to utilize and optimize the sensor nodes' resources, especially the batteries, to achieve balanced energy consumption across all sensor nodes. This method is based on the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) metaheuristic which is adopted to enhance the paths with the best quality function. The assessment of this function depends on multi-criteria metrics such as the minimum residual battery power, hop count and average energy of both route and network. This method also distributes the traffic load of sensor nodes throughout the WSN leading to reduced energy usage, extended network life time and reduced packet loss. Simulation results show that our scheme performs much better than the Energy Efficient Ant-Based Routing (EEABR) in terms of energy consumption, balancing and efficiency.

A Game Theoretic Approach for Balancing Energy Consumption in Clustered Wireless Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Liu; Lu, Yinzhi; Xiong, Lian; Tao, Yang; Zhong, Yuanchang

2017-11-17

Clustering is an effective topology control method in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), since it can enhance the network lifetime and scalability. To prolong the network lifetime in clustered WSNs, an efficient cluster head (CH) optimization policy is essential to distribute the energy among sensor nodes. Recently, game theory has been introduced to model clustering. Each sensor node is considered as a rational and selfish player which will play a clustering game with an equilibrium strategy. Then it decides whether to act as the CH according to this strategy for a tradeoff between providing required services and energy conservation. However, how to get the equilibrium strategy while maximizing the payoff of sensor nodes has rarely been addressed to date. In this paper, we present a game theoretic approach for balancing energy consumption in clustered WSNs. With our novel payoff function, realistic sensor behaviors can be captured well. The energy heterogeneity of nodes is considered by incorporating a penalty mechanism in the payoff function, so the nodes with more energy will compete for CHs more actively. We have obtained the Nash equilibrium (NE) strategy of the clustering game through convex optimization. Specifically, each sensor node can achieve its own maximal payoff when it makes the decision according to this strategy. Through plenty of simulations, our proposed game theoretic clustering is proved to have a good energy balancing performance and consequently the network lifetime is greatly enhanced.

An adaptive clustering approach to dynamic load balancing and energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gherbi, Chirihane; Aliouat, Zibouda; Benmohammed, Mohamed

2016-01-01

Clustering is a well known approach to cope with large nodes density and efficiently conserving energy in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Load balancing is an effective approach for optimizing resources like channel bandwidth, the main objective of this paper is to combine these two valuable approaches in order to significantly improve the main WSN service such as information routing. So, our proposal is a routing protocol in which load traffic is shared among cluster members in order to reduce the dropping probability due to queue overflow at some nodes. To this end, a novel hierarchical approach, called Hierarchical Energy-Balancing Multipath routing protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (HEBM) is proposed. The HEBM approach aims to fulfill the following purposes: decreasing the overall network energy consumption, balancing the energy dissipation among the sensor nodes and as direct consequence: extending the lifetime of the network. In fact, the cluster-heads are optimally determined and suitably distributed over the area of interest allowing the member nodes reaching them with adequate energy dissipation and appropriate load balancing utilization. In addition, nodes radio are turned off for fixed time duration according to sleeping control rules optimizing so their energy consumption. The performance evaluation of the proposed protocol is carried out through the well-known NS2 simulator and the exhibited results are convincing. Like this, the residual energy of sensor nodes was measured every 20 s throughout the duration of simulation, in order to calculate the total number of alive nodes. Based on the simulation results, we concluded that our proposed HEBM protocol increases the profit of energy, and prolongs the network lifetime duration from 32% to 40% compared to DEEAC reference protocol and from 25% to 28% compared to FEMCHRP protocol. The authors also note that the proposed protocol is 41.7% better than DEEAC with respect to FND (Fist node die), and 25

Balanced Bipartite Graph Based Register Allocation for Network Processors in Mobile and Wireless Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feilong Tang

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Mobile and wireless networks are the integrant infrastructure of mobile and pervasive computing that aims at providing transparent and preferred information and services for people anytime anywhere. In such environments, end-to-end network bandwidth is crucial to improve user's transparent experience when providing on-demand services such as mobile video playing. As a result, powerful computing power is required for networked nodes, especially for routers. General-purpose processors cannot meet such requirements due to their limited processing ability, and poor programmability and scalability. Intel's network processor IXP is specially designed for fast packet processing to achieve a broad bandwidth. IXP provides a large number of registers to reduce the number of memory accesses. Registers in an IXP are physically partitioned as two banks so that two source operands in an instruction have to come from the two banks respectively, which makes the IXP register allocation tricky and different from conventional ones. In this paper, we investigate an approach for efficiently generating balanced bipartite graph and register allocation algorithms for the dual-bank register allocation in IXPs. The paper presents a graph uniform 2-way partition algorithm (FPT, which provides an optimal solution to the graph partition, and a heuristic algorithm for generating balanced bipartite graph. Finally, we design a framework for IXP register allocation. Experimental results demonstrate the framework and the algorithms are efficient in register allocation for IXP network processors.

Performance Analysis of On-Demand Routing Protocols in Wireless Mesh Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arafatur RAHMAN

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs have recently gained a lot of popularity due to their rapid deployment and instant communication capabilities. WMNs are dynamically self-organizing, self-configuring and self-healing with the nodes in the network automatically establishing an adiej hoc network and preserving the mesh connectivity. Designing a routing protocol for WMNs requires several aspects to consider, such as wireless networks, fixed applications, mobile applications, scalability, better performance metrics, efficient routing within infrastructure, load balancing, throughput enhancement, interference, robustness etc. To support communication, various routing protocols are designed for various networks (e.g. ad hoc, sensor, wired etc.. However, all these protocols are not suitable for WMNs, because of the architectural differences among the networks. In this paper, a detailed simulation based performance study and analysis is performed on the reactive routing protocols to verify the suitability of these protocols over such kind of networks. Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV, Dynamic Source Routing (DSR and Dynamic MANET On-demand (DYMO routing protocol are considered as the representative of reactive routing protocols. The performance differentials are investigated using varying traffic load and number of source. Based on the simulation results, how the performance of each protocol can be improved is also recommended.

A Fault Detection Filtering for Networked Control Systems Based on Balanced Reduced-Order

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Da-Meng Dai

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Due to the probability of the packet dropout in the networked control systems, a balanced reduced-order fault detection filter is proposed. In this paper, we first analyze the packet dropout effects in the networked control systems. Then, in order to obtain a robust fault detector for the packet dropout, we use the balanced structure to construct a reduced-order model for residual dynamics. Simulation results are provided to testify the proposed method.

DIZZYNET--a European network initiative for vertigo and balance research: visions and aims.

Science.gov (United States)

Zwergal, Andreas; Brandt, Thomas; Magnusson, Mans; Kennard, Christopher

2016-04-01

Vertigo is one of the most common complaints in medicine. Despite its high prevalence, patients with vertigo often receive either inappropriate or inadequate treatment. The most important reasons for this deplorable situation are insufficient interdisciplinary cooperation, nonexistent standards in diagnostics and therapy, the relatively rare translations of basic science findings to clinical applications, and the scarcity of prospective controlled multicenter clinical trials. To overcome these problems, the German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (DSGZ) started an initiative to establish a European Network for Vertigo and Balance Research called DIZZYNET. The central aim is to create a platform for collaboration and exchange among scientists, physicians, technicians, and physiotherapists in the fields of basic and translational research, clinical management, clinical trials, rehabilitation, and epidemiology. The network will also promote public awareness and help establish educational standards in the field. The DIZZYNET has the following objectives as regards structure and content: to focus on multidisciplinary translational research in vertigo and balance disorders, to develop interdisciplinary longitudinal and transversal networks for patient care by standardizing and personalizing the management of patients, to increase methodological competence by implementing common standards of practice and quality management, to internationalize the infrastructure for prospective multicenter clinical trials, to increase recruitment capacity for clinical trials, to create a common data base for patients with vertigo and balance disorders, to offer and promote attractive educational and career paths in a network of cooperating institutions. In the long term, the DIZZYNET should serve as an internationally visible network for interdisciplinary and multiprofessional research on vertigo and balance disorders. It ideally should equally attract the afflicted patients and

[Development and Application of a Performance Prediction Model for Home Care Nursing Based on a Balanced Scorecard using the Bayesian Belief Network].

Science.gov (United States)

Noh, Wonjung; Seomun, Gyeongae

2015-06-01

This study was conducted to develop key performance indicators (KPIs) for home care nursing (HCN) based on a balanced scorecard, and to construct a performance prediction model of strategic objectives using the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN). This methodological study included four steps: establishment of KPIs, performance prediction modeling, development of a performance prediction model using BBN, and simulation of a suggested nursing management strategy. An HCN expert group and a staff group participated. The content validity index was analyzed using STATA 13.0, and BBN was analyzed using HUGIN 8.0. We generated a list of KPIs composed of 4 perspectives, 10 strategic objectives, and 31 KPIs. In the validity test of the performance prediction model, the factor with the greatest variance for increasing profit was maximum cost reduction of HCN services. The factor with the smallest variance for increasing profit was a minimum image improvement for HCN. During sensitivity analysis, the probability of the expert group did not affect the sensitivity. Furthermore, simulation of a 10% image improvement predicted the most effective way to increase profit. KPIs of HCN can estimate financial and non-financial performance. The performance prediction model for HCN will be useful to improve performance.

The balanced scorecard: sustainable performance assessment for forensic laboratories.

Science.gov (United States)

Houck, Max; Speaker, Paul J; Fleming, Arron Scott; Riley, Richard A

2012-12-01

The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of the balanced scorecard into the laboratory management environment. The balanced scorecard is a performance measurement matrix designed to capture financial and non-financial metrics that provide insight into the critical success factors for an organization, effectively aligning organization strategy to key performance objectives. The scorecard helps organizational leaders by providing balance from two perspectives. First, it ensures an appropriate mix of performance metrics from across the organization to achieve operational excellence; thereby the balanced scorecard ensures that no single or limited group of metrics dominates the assessment process, possibly leading to long-term inferior performance. Second, the balanced scorecard helps leaders offset short term performance pressures by giving recognition and weight to long-term laboratory needs that, if not properly addressed, might jeopardize future laboratory performance. Copyright © 2012 Forensic Science Society. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Energy Balanced and Lifetime Extended Routing Protocol for Underwater Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hao; Wang, Shilian; Zhang, Eryang; Lu, Luxi

2018-05-17

Energy limitation is an adverse problem in designing routing protocols for underwater sensor networks (UWSNs). To prolong the network lifetime with limited battery power, an energy balanced and efficient routing protocol, called energy balanced and lifetime extended routing protocol (EBLE), is proposed in this paper. The proposed EBLE not only balances traffic loads according to the residual energy, but also optimizes data transmissions by selecting low-cost paths. Two phases are operated in the EBLE data transmission process: (1) candidate forwarding set selection phase and (2) data transmission phase. In candidate forwarding set selection phase, nodes update candidate forwarding nodes by broadcasting the position and residual energy level information. The cost value of available nodes is calculated and stored in each sensor node. Then in data transmission phase, high residual energy and relatively low-cost paths are selected based on the cost function and residual energy level information. We also introduce detailed analysis of optimal energy consumption in UWSNs. Numerical simulation results on a variety of node distributions and data load distributions prove that EBLE outperforms other routing protocols (BTM, BEAR and direct transmission) in terms of network lifetime and energy efficiency.

A Smart and Balanced Energy-Efficient Multihop Clustering Algorithm (Smart-BEEM) for MIMO IoT Systems in Future Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Lina; O'Hare, Gregory M P; Collier, Rem

2017-07-05

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are typically composed of thousands of sensors powered by limited energy resources. Clustering techniques were introduced to prolong network longevity offering the promise of green computing. However, most existing work fails to consider the network coverage when evaluating the lifetime of a network. We believe that balancing the energy consumption in per unit area rather than on each single sensor can provide better-balanced power usage throughout the network. Our former work-Balanced Energy-Efficiency (BEE) and its Multihop version BEEM can not only extend the network longevity, but also maintain the network coverage. Following WSNs, Internet of Things (IoT) technology has been proposed with higher degree of diversities in terms of communication abilities and user scenarios, supporting a large range of real world applications. The IoT devices are embedded with multiple communication interfaces, normally referred as Multiple-In and Multiple-Out (MIMO) in 5G networks. The applications running on those devices can generate various types of data. Every interface has its own characteristics, which may be preferred and beneficial in some specific user scenarios. With MIMO becoming more available on the IoT devices, an advanced clustering solution for highly dynamic IoT systems is missing and also pressingly demanded in order to cater for differing user applications. In this paper, we present a smart clustering algorithm (Smart-BEEM) based on our former work BEE(M) to accomplish energy efficient and Quality of user Experience (QoE) supported communication in cluster based IoT networks. It is a user behaviour and context aware approach, aiming to facilitate IoT devices to choose beneficial communication interfaces and cluster headers for data transmission. Experimental results have proved that Smart-BEEM can further improve the performance of BEE and BEEM for coverage sensitive longevity.

Enhanced method of fast re-routing with load balancing in software-defined networks

Science.gov (United States)

Lemeshko, Oleksandr; Yeremenko, Oleksandra

2017-11-01

A two-level method of fast re-routing with load balancing in a software-defined network (SDN) is proposed. The novelty of the method consists, firstly, in the introduction of a two-level hierarchy of calculating the routing variables responsible for the formation of the primary and backup paths, and secondly, in ensuring a balanced load of the communication links of the network, which meets the requirements of the traffic engineering concept. The method provides implementation of link, node, path, and bandwidth protection schemes for fast re-routing in SDN. The separation in accordance with the interaction prediction principle along two hierarchical levels of the calculation functions of the primary (lower level) and backup (upper level) routes allowed to abandon the initial sufficiently large and nonlinear optimization problem by transiting to the iterative solution of linear optimization problems of half the dimension. The analysis of the proposed method confirmed its efficiency and effectiveness in terms of obtaining optimal solutions for ensuring balanced load of communication links and implementing the required network element protection schemes for fast re-routing in SDN.

A Markov model for the temporal dynamics of balanced random networks of finite size

Science.gov (United States)

Lagzi, Fereshteh; Rotter, Stefan

2014-01-01

The balanced state of recurrent networks of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons is characterized by fluctuations of population activity about an attractive fixed point. Numerical simulations show that these dynamics are essentially nonlinear, and the intrinsic noise (self-generated fluctuations) in networks of finite size is state-dependent. Therefore, stochastic differential equations with additive noise of fixed amplitude cannot provide an adequate description of the stochastic dynamics. The noise model should, rather, result from a self-consistent description of the network dynamics. Here, we consider a two-state Markovian neuron model, where spikes correspond to transitions from the active state to the refractory state. Excitatory and inhibitory input to this neuron affects the transition rates between the two states. The corresponding nonlinear dependencies can be identified directly from numerical simulations of networks of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, discretized at a time resolution in the sub-millisecond range. Deterministic mean-field equations, and a noise component that depends on the dynamic state of the network, are obtained from this model. The resulting stochastic model reflects the behavior observed in numerical simulations quite well, irrespective of the size of the network. In particular, a strong temporal correlation between the two populations, a hallmark of the balanced state in random recurrent networks, are well represented by our model. Numerical simulations of such networks show that a log-normal distribution of short-term spike counts is a property of balanced random networks with fixed in-degree that has not been considered before, and our model shares this statistical property. Furthermore, the reconstruction of the flow from simulated time series suggests that the mean-field dynamics of finite-size networks are essentially of Wilson-Cowan type. We expect that this novel nonlinear stochastic model of the interaction between

Multi-Layer Mobility Load Balancing in a Heterogeneous LTE Network

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fotiadis, Panagiotis; Polignano, Michele; Laselva, Daniela

2012-01-01

This paper analyzes the behavior of a distributed Mobility Load Balancing (MLB) scheme in a multi-layer 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployment with different User Equipment (UE) densities in certain network areas covered with pico cells. Target of the study...

A Secure and Stable Multicast Overlay Network with Load Balancing for Scalable IPTV Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tsao-Ta Wei

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The emerging multimedia Internet application IPTV over P2P network preserves significant advantages in scalability. IPTV media content delivered in P2P networks over public Internet still preserves the issues of privacy and intellectual property rights. In this paper, we use SIP protocol to construct a secure application-layer multicast overlay network for IPTV, called SIPTVMON. SIPTVMON can secure all the IPTV media delivery paths against eavesdroppers via elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH key exchange on SIP signaling and AES encryption. Its load-balancing overlay tree is also optimized from peer heterogeneity and churn of peer joining and leaving to minimize both service degradation and latency. The performance results from large-scale simulations and experiments on different optimization criteria demonstrate SIPTVMON's cost effectiveness in quality of privacy protection, stability from user churn, and good perceptual quality of objective PSNR values for scalable IPTV services over Internet.

The balanced scorecard logic in the management control and reporting of small business company networks: A case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Selena Aureli

2018-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to assess and integrate the application of the balance scorecard (BSC logic into business networks identifying functions and use that such performance measuring tool may undertake for SME’s collaborative development. Thus, the paper analyses a successful case study regarding an Italian network of small companies, evaluating how the multidimensional perspective of BSC can support strategic and operational network management as well as communication of financial and extra financial performance to stakeholders. The study consists of a qualitative method, proposing the application of BSC model for business networks from international literature. Several meetings and interviews as well as triangulation with primary and secondary documents have been conducted. The case study allows to recognize how BSC network logic can play a fundamental role on defining network mission, supporting management control as well as measuring and reporting the intangible assets formation along the network development lifecycle. This is the first time application of a BSC integrated framework for business networks composed of SMEs. The case study demonstrates operational value of BSC for SME’s collaborative development and success.

Network survivability performance

Science.gov (United States)

1993-11-01

This technical report has been developed to address the survivability of telecommunications networks including services. It responds to the need for a common understanding of, and assessment techniques for network survivability, availability, integrity, and reliability. It provides a basis for designing and operating telecommunications networks to user expectations for network survivability and a foundation for continuing industry activities in the subject area. This report focuses on the survivability of both public and private networks and covers a wide range of users. Two frameworks are established for quantifying and categorizing service outages, and for classifying network survivability techniques and measures. The performance of the network survivability techniques is considered; however, recommended objectives are not established for network survivability performance.

A Smart and Balanced Energy-Efficient Multihop Clustering Algorithm (Smart-BEEM) for MIMO IoT Systems in Future Networks †

Science.gov (United States)

O’Hare, Gregory M. P.; Collier, Rem

2017-01-01

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are typically composed of thousands of sensors powered by limited energy resources. Clustering techniques were introduced to prolong network longevity offering the promise of green computing. However, most existing work fails to consider the network coverage when evaluating the lifetime of a network. We believe that balancing the energy consumption in per unit area rather than on each single sensor can provide better-balanced power usage throughout the network. Our former work—Balanced Energy-Efficiency (BEE) and its Multihop version BEEM can not only extend the network longevity, but also maintain the network coverage. Following WSNs, Internet of Things (IoT) technology has been proposed with higher degree of diversities in terms of communication abilities and user scenarios, supporting a large range of real world applications. The IoT devices are embedded with multiple communication interfaces, normally referred as Multiple-In and Multiple-Out (MIMO) in 5G networks. The applications running on those devices can generate various types of data. Every interface has its own characteristics, which may be preferred and beneficial in some specific user scenarios. With MIMO becoming more available on the IoT devices, an advanced clustering solution for highly dynamic IoT systems is missing and also pressingly demanded in order to cater for differing user applications. In this paper, we present a smart clustering algorithm (Smart-BEEM) based on our former work BEE(M) to accomplish energy efficient and Quality of user Experience (QoE) supported communication in cluster based IoT networks. It is a user behaviour and context aware approach, aiming to facilitate IoT devices to choose beneficial communication interfaces and cluster headers for data transmission. Experimental results have proved that Smart-BEEM can further improve the performance of BEE and BEEM for coverage sensitive longevity. PMID:28678164

RPL LOAD BALANCING IN INTERNET OF THINGS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Reza Parsaei

2017-12-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT:  The wide address space provided by Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6 lets any thing to be identified uniquely. consistency of the modified version of IPv6 protocol stack with smart objects, facilitated the Internet interconnection of the networks of smart objects and introduced Internet of things. A smart object is a small micro-electronic device that consists of a communication device, a small microprocessor and a sensor or an actuator. A network made of such devices is called low-power and lossy network. RPL routing protocol that is consistent to IPv6, is designed to be used in these kinds of networks. Load balancing is not considered in the RPL design process. Whenever RPL is used in large scale low-power and lossy networks some nodes will suffer from congestion and this problem severely degrades network performance. In this paper, we consider solutions provided to tackle RPL load balancing problems. Load balancing algorithms and protoclos are evaluated through simulation. We evaluate IETF RPL implementation and LB-RPL method with Contiki OS Java (COOJA simulator. They are assessed comprehensively through metrics such as Packet delivery Ratio, Average End to End delay, and Gateway Throughput. LB-RPL improves RPL in terms of Packet delivery Ratio and throughput but increases Average End to End delay. Simulations results show that RPL load balancing needs extensive works to be performed yet.

Environmental performance evaluation and strategy management using balanced scorecard.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Yu-Lung; Liu, Chun-Chu

2010-11-01

Recently, environmental protection and regulations such as WEEE, ELV, and RoHS are rapidly emerging as an important issue for business to consider. The trend of swinging from end-of-pipe control to product design, green innovation, and even the establishment of image or brand has affected corporations in almost every corner in the world, and enlarged to the all modern global production network. Corporations must take proactive environmental strategies to response the challenges. This study adopts balanced scorecard structure and aim at automobile industries to understand the relationships of internal and external, financial and non-financial, and outcome and driving factors. Further relying on these relationships to draw the "map of environment strategy" to probe and understand the feasibility of environmental performance evaluation and environmental strategy control.

Achieving excellence in veterans healthcare--a balanced scorecard approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Biro, Lawrence A; Moreland, Michael E; Cowgill, David E

2003-01-01

This article provides healthcare administrators and managers with a framework and model for developing a balanced scorecard and demonstrates the remarkable success of this process, which brings focus to leadership decisions about the allocation of resources. This scorecard was developed as a top management tool designed to structure multiple priorities of a large, complex, integrated healthcare system and to establish benchmarks to measure success in achieving targets for performance in identified areas. Significant benefits and positive results were derived from the implementation of the balanced scorecard, based upon benchmarks considered to be critical success factors. The network's chief executive officer and top leadership team set and articulated the network's primary operating principles: quality and efficiency in the provision of comprehensive healthcare and support services. Under the weighted benchmarks of the balanced scorecard, the facilities in the network were mandated to adhere to one non-negotiable tenet: providing care that is second to none. The balanced scorecard approach to leadership continuously ensures that this is the primary goal and focal point for all activity within the network. To that end, systems are always in place to ensure that the network is fully successful on all performance measures relating to quality.

Adaptive control of structural balance for complex dynamical networks based on dynamic coupling of nodes

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Zilin; Wang, Yinhe; Zhang, Lili

2018-02-01

In the existing research results of the complex dynamical networks controlled, the controllers are mainly used to guarantee the synchronization or stabilization of the nodes’ state, and the terms coupled with connection relationships may affect the behaviors of nodes, this obviously ignores the dynamic common behavior of the connection relationships between the nodes. In fact, from the point of view of large-scale system, a complex dynamical network can be regarded to be composed of two time-varying dynamic subsystems, which can be called the nodes subsystem and the connection relationships subsystem, respectively. Similar to the synchronization or stabilization of the nodes subsystem, some characteristic phenomena can be also emerged in the connection relationships subsystem. For example, the structural balance in the social networks and the synaptic facilitation in the biological neural networks. This paper focuses on the structural balance in dynamic complex networks. Generally speaking, the state of the connection relationships subsystem is difficult to be measured accurately in practical applications, and thus it is not easy to implant the controller directly into the connection relationships subsystem. It is noted that the nodes subsystem and the relationships subsystem are mutually coupled, which implies that the state of the connection relationships subsystem can be affected by the controllable state of nodes subsystem. Inspired by this observation, by using the structural balance theory of triad, the controller with the parameter adaptive law is proposed for the nodes subsystem in this paper, which may ensure the connection relationship matrix to approximate a given structural balance matrix in the sense of the uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). That is, the structural balance may be obtained by employing the controlling state of the nodes subsystem. Finally, the simulations are used to show the validity of the method in this paper.

Effects of aquatic balance training and detraining on neuromuscular performance and balance in healthy middle aged male

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Abbasi

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Since disorders in neuromuscular performance and imbalance are the main cause of fallingamong the middle aged, their aspects including rehabilitation of balance are the main concern theresearchers attend to them. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of eight weeks aquaticbalance training (ABT and detraining on neuromuscular performance and balance in healthy middle agedmale.Materials and Methods: Thirty adult male subjects were randomized into two groups of ABT and control(n=15 per group. Berg balance scale, Timed Up and Go and 5-Chair stand tests, as they are indicators ofbalance and neuromuscular performance in older subjects, were taken as pretest and post-test and after four,six, and eight weeks of detraining as well. The ABT consisted of the sessions that lasted one hour, threetimes a week, for eight weeks.Results: Results showed that neuromuscular performance and balance improved significantly in ABTgroup (P 0.05.Conclusion: ABT can affect neuromuscular performance and balance in healthy middle aged male, andreduce the probability of falling among them. Moreover, the effects of these training are persistent afterdetraining periods. Hence, ABT can be recommended as an effective neuromuscular and balance training inhealthy middle aged male

Examining the nomological network of satisfaction with work-life balance.

Science.gov (United States)

Grawitch, Matthew J; Maloney, Patrick W; Barber, Larissa K; Mooshegian, Stephanie E

2013-07-01

This study expands on past work-life research by examining the nomological network of satisfaction with work-life balance-the overall appraisal or global assessment of how one manages time and energy across work and nonwork domains. Analyses using 456 employees at a midsized organization indicated expected relationships with bidirectional conflict, bidirectional facilitation, and satisfaction with work and nonwork life. Structural equation modeling supported the utility of satisfaction with balance as a unique component of work-life interface perceptions. Results also indicated that satisfaction with balance mediated the relationship between some conflict/facilitation and life satisfaction outcomes, though conflict and facilitation maintained unique predictive validity on domain specific outcomes (i.e., work-to-life conflict and facilitation with work life satisfaction; life-to-work conflict and facilitation with nonwork life satisfaction). PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Optimizing Intermodal Train Schedules with a Design Balanced Network Design Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Michael Berliner; Crainic, Teodor Gabriel

We present a modeling approach for optimizing intermodal trains schedules based on an infrastructure divided into time-dependent train paths. The formulation can be generalized to a capacitated multi commodity network design model with additional design balance constraints. We present a Tabu Search...

Model reduction of detailed-balanced reaction networks by clustering linkage classes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rao, Shodhan; Jayawardhana, Bayu; van der Schaft, Abraham; Findeisen, Rolf; Bullinger, Eric; Balsa-Canto, Eva; Bernaerts, Kristel

2016-01-01

We propose a model reduction method that involves sequential application of clustering of linkage classes and Kron reduction. This approach is specifically useful for chemical reaction networks with each linkage class having less number of reactions. In case of detailed balanced chemical reaction

The balanced scorecard: an integrative approach to performance evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira, J

2001-05-01

In addition to strict financial outcomes, healthcare financial managers should assess intangible assets that affect the organization's bottom line, such as clinical processes, staff skills, and patient satisfaction and loyalty. The balanced scorecard, coupled with data-warehousing capabilities, offers a way to measure an organization's performance against its strategic objectives while focusing on building capabilities to achieve these objectives. The balanced scorecard examines performance related to finance, human resources, internal processes, and customers. Because the balanced scorecard requires substantial amounts of data, it is a necessity to establish an organizational data warehouse of clinical, operational, and financial data that can be used in decision support. Because it presents indicators that managers and staff can influence directly by their actions, the balanced-scorecard approach to performance measurement encourages behavioral changes aimed at achieving corporate strategies.

[Influence of ski boots on balance performance].

Science.gov (United States)

Mildner, E; Lembert, S; Raschner, C

2010-03-01

Modern ski carving technique demands that skiers have a strong sense of balance and edge their skis with precision and feeling. Stiff ski boots facilitate the transfer of power to the ski but increase the difficulty of balancing. The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of ski boots on balance performance of alpine skiers. 76 experienced skiers (female 33/male 43) and 76 ski racers of the Skigymnasium Stams (female 31/male 45) were tested on the MFT S 3 Check with and without ski boots. Ski boots significantly influenced balance. There were also significant differences between experienced skiers and ski racers, but gender differences were minimal. In addition to general conditioning, skiers should utilise general and ski-specific balance and sensomotor training which could help in ski injury prevention, especially knee injuries. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart, New York.

Structural Observability and Sensor Node Selection for Complex Networks Governed by Nonlinear Balance Equations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kawano, Yu; Cao, Ming

2017-01-01

We define and then study the structural observability for a class of complex networks whose dynamics are governed by the nonlinear balance equations. Although related notions of observability of such complex networks have been studied before and in particular, necessary conditions have been reported

Multi-objective synthesis of work and heat exchange networks: Optimal balance between economic and environmental performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Onishi, Viviani C.; Ravagnani, Mauro A.S.S.; Jiménez, Laureano; Caballero, José A.

2017-01-01

Highlights: • New multi-objective optimization model for the simultaneous WHEN synthesis. • A multistage superstructure allows power and thermal integration of process streams. • Simultaneous minimization of environmental impacts and total annualized cost. • Alternative set of Pareto solutions is presented to support decision-makers. - Abstract: Sustainable and efficient energy use is crucial for lessening carbon dioxide emissions in industrial plants. This paper introduces a new multi-objective optimization model for the synthesis of work and heat exchange networks (WHENs), aiming to obtain the optimal balance between economic and environmental performance. The proposed multistage superstructure allows power and thermal integration of process gaseous streams, through the simultaneous minimization of total annualized cost (TAC) and environmental impacts (EI). The latter objective is determined by environmental indicators that follow the life cycle assessment (LCA) principles. The WHEN superstructure is optimized as a multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming (moMINLP) model and solved with the GAMS software. Results show a decrease of ∼79% in the heat transfer area and ∼32% in the capital cost between the solutions found for single problem optimizations. These results represent a diminution of ∼23.5% in the TAC, while EI is increased in ∼99.2%. As these solutions can be impractical for economic or environmental reasons, we present a set of alternative Pareto-optimal solutions to support decision-makers towards the implementation of more environment-friendly and cost-effective WHENs.

DESIGNING COMPANY PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM USING BALANCE SCORECARD APPROACH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cecep Mukti Soleh

2015-05-01

Full Text Available This research aimed to design how to measure company performance by using balance scorecard approach in coal transportation services industry. Depth interview was used to obtain qualitative data determination of strategic objectives, key performance indicators, strategic initiatives, and in charge units for each balanced scorecard perspectives while the quantitative data were obtained from weighting through questionnaires and analyzed using paired comparison to get a perspective what mostly affected the performance of the company. To measure the achievement of corporate performance, each KPI used (1 the scoring system with the methods that higher is better, lower is better and precise is better; (2 traffic light system with the help of green, yellow, red for identification of target achievement. This research result shows that in the balance scorecard perspective, the most influences on the overall performance of the company include the customer's perspective (31%, financial perspective (29%, internal business processes (21%, learning, and growth 19%. Keywords: balance scorecard, paired comparison, coal transportation serviceABSTRAKPenelitian ini bertujuan untuk merancang pengukuran kinerja perusahaan dengan menggunakan pendekatan balance scorecard di industri jasa pengangkutan batu bara. Data kualitatif diperoleh melalui indepth interview digunakan untuk menentukan sasaran strategik, indikator kinerja utama, inisiatif strategi dan penanggungjawab setiap divisi setiap perspektif balance scorecard, sedangkan data kuantitatif digunakan untuk pembobotan melalui kuesioner dan dianalisis dengan menggunakan metode paired comparisson untuk mendapatkan perspektif yang paling berpengaruh terhadap kinerja perusahaan. Ukuran pencapaian kinerja perusahaan dari setiap KPI menggunakan; (1 scoring system dengan bantuan metode higher is better, lower is better dan precise is better;(2 traffic light system dengan menggunakan bantuan warna hijau, kuning, merah

BER Analysis Using Beat Probability Method of 3D Optical CDMA Networks with Double Balanced Detection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chih-Ta Yen

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This study proposes novel three-dimensional (3D matrices of wavelength/time/spatial code for code-division multiple-access (OCDMA networks, with a double balanced detection mechanism. We construct 3D carrier-hopping prime/modified prime (CHP/MP codes by extending a two-dimensional (2D CHP code integrated with a one-dimensional (1D MP code. The corresponding coder/decoder pairs were based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs and tunable optical delay lines integrated with splitters/combiners. System performance was enhanced by the low cross correlation properties of the 3D code designed to avoid the beat noise phenomenon. The CHP/MP code cardinality increased significantly compared to the CHP code under the same bit error rate (BER. The results indicate that the 3D code method can enhance system performance because both the beating terms and multiple-access interference (MAI were reduced by the double balanced detection mechanism. Additionally, the optical component can also be relaxed for high transmission scenery.

Assessing harmonic current source modelling and power definitions in balanced and unbalanced networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Atkinson-Hope, Gary; Stemmet, W.C. [Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town Campus, Cape Town (South Africa)

2006-07-01

The purpose of this paper is to assess the DlgSILENT PowerFactory software power definitions (indices) in terms of phase and sequence components for balanced and unbalanced networks when harmonic distortion is present and to compare its results to hand calculations done, following recommendation made by the IEEE Working Group on this topic. This paper also includes the development of a flowchart for calculating power indices in balanced and unbalanced three-phase networks when non-sinusoidal voltages and currents are present. A further purpose is to determine how two industrial grade harmonic analysis software packages (DlgSILENT and ERACS) model three-phase harmonic sources used for current penetration studies and to compare their results when applied to a network. From the investigations, another objective was to develop a methodology for modelling harmonic current sources based on a spectrum obtained from measurements. Three case studies were conducted and the assessment and developed methodologies were shown to be effective. (Author)

Whose Balance Sheet is this? Neural Networks for Banks' Pattern Recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leon Rincon, Carlos; Moreno, José Fernando; Cely, Jorge

2017-01-01

The balance sheet is a snapshot that portraits the financial position of a firm at a specific point of time. Under the reasonable assumption that the financial position of a firm is unique and representative, we use a basic artificial neural network pattern recognition method on Colombian banks’

Stoichiometric balance of protein copy numbers is measurable and functionally significant in a protein-protein interaction network for yeast endocytosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Holland, David O; Johnson, Margaret E

2018-03-01

Stoichiometric balance, or dosage balance, implies that proteins that are subunits of obligate complexes (e.g. the ribosome) should have copy numbers expressed to match their stoichiometry in that complex. Establishing balance (or imbalance) is an important tool for inferring subunit function and assembly bottlenecks. We show here that these correlations in protein copy numbers can extend beyond complex subunits to larger protein-protein interactions networks (PPIN) involving a range of reversible binding interactions. We develop a simple method for quantifying balance in any interface-resolved PPINs based on network structure and experimentally observed protein copy numbers. By analyzing such a network for the clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) system in yeast, we found that the real protein copy numbers were significantly more balanced in relation to their binding partners compared to randomly sampled sets of yeast copy numbers. The observed balance is not perfect, highlighting both under and overexpressed proteins. We evaluate the potential cost and benefits of imbalance using two criteria. First, a potential cost to imbalance is that 'leftover' proteins without remaining functional partners are free to misinteract. We systematically quantify how this misinteraction cost is most dangerous for strong-binding protein interactions and for network topologies observed in biological PPINs. Second, a more direct consequence of imbalance is that the formation of specific functional complexes depends on relative copy numbers. We therefore construct simple kinetic models of two sub-networks in the CME network to assess multi-protein assembly of the ARP2/3 complex and a minimal, nine-protein clathrin-coated vesicle forming module. We find that the observed, imperfectly balanced copy numbers are less effective than balanced copy numbers in producing fast and complete multi-protein assemblies. However, we speculate that strategic imbalance in the vesicle forming module

Is functional integration of resting state brain networks an unspecific biomarker for working memory performance?

Science.gov (United States)

Alavash, Mohsen; Doebler, Philipp; Holling, Heinz; Thiel, Christiane M; Gießing, Carsten

2015-03-01

Is there one optimal topology of functional brain networks at rest from which our cognitive performance would profit? Previous studies suggest that functional integration of resting state brain networks is an important biomarker for cognitive performance. However, it is still unknown whether higher network integration is an unspecific predictor for good cognitive performance or, alternatively, whether specific network organization during rest predicts only specific cognitive abilities. Here, we investigated the relationship between network integration at rest and cognitive performance using two tasks that measured different aspects of working memory; one task assessed visual-spatial and the other numerical working memory. Network clustering, modularity and efficiency were computed to capture network integration on different levels of network organization, and to statistically compare their correlations with the performance in each working memory test. The results revealed that each working memory aspect profits from a different resting state topology, and the tests showed significantly different correlations with each of the measures of network integration. While higher global network integration and modularity predicted significantly better performance in visual-spatial working memory, both measures showed no significant correlation with numerical working memory performance. In contrast, numerical working memory was superior in subjects with highly clustered brain networks, predominantly in the intraparietal sulcus, a core brain region of the working memory network. Our findings suggest that a specific balance between local and global functional integration of resting state brain networks facilitates special aspects of cognitive performance. In the context of working memory, while visual-spatial performance is facilitated by globally integrated functional resting state brain networks, numerical working memory profits from increased capacities for local processing

Prediction Based Energy Balancing Forwarding in Cellular Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yang Jian-Jun

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In the recent cellular network technologies, relay stations extend cell coverage and enhance signal strength for mobile users. However, busy traffic makes the relay stations in hot area run out of energy quickly. Energy is a very important factor in the forwarding of cellular network since mobile users(cell phones in hot cells often suffer from low throughput due to energy lack problems. In many situations, the energy lack problems take place because the energy loading is not balanced. In this paper, we present a prediction based forwarding algorithm to let a mobile node dynamically select the next relay station with highest potential energy capacity to resume communication. Key to this strategy is that a relay station only maintains three past status, and then it is able to predict the potential energy capacity. Then, the node selects the next hop with potential maximal energy. Moreover, a location based algorithm is developed to let the mobile node figure out the target region in order to avoid flooding. Simulations demonstrate that our approach significantly increase the aggregate throughput and decrease the delay in cellular network environment.

Relationship between strength, power and balance performance in seniors.

Science.gov (United States)

Muehlbauer, Thomas; Besemer, Carmen; Wehrle, Anja; Gollhofer, Albert; Granacher, Urs

2012-01-01

Deficits in strength, power and balance represent important intrinsic risk factors for falls in seniors. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between variables of lower extremity muscle strength/power and balance, assessed under various task conditions. Twenty-four healthy and physically active older adults (mean age: 70 ± 5 years) were tested for their isometric strength (i.e. maximal isometric force of the leg extensors) and muscle power (i.e. countermovement jump height and power) as well as for their steady-state (i.e. unperturbed standing, 10-meter walk), proactive (i.e. Timed Up & Go test, Functional Reach Test) and reactive (i.e. perturbed standing) balance. Balance tests were conducted under single (i.e. standing or walking alone) and dual task conditions (i.e. standing or walking plus cognitive and motor interference task). Significant positive correlations were found between measures of isometric strength and muscle power of the lower extremities (r values ranged between 0.608 and 0.720, p power and balance (i.e. no significant association in 20 out of 21 cases). Additionally, no significant correlations were found between measures of steady-state, proactive and reactive balance or balance tests performed under single and dual task conditions (all p > 0.05). The predominately nonsignificant correlations between different types of balance imply that balance performance is task specific in healthy and physically active seniors. Further, strength, power and balance as well as balance under single and dual task conditions seem to be independent of each other and may have to be tested and trained complementarily. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

High-Performance Networking

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2003-01-01

The series will start with an historical introduction about what people saw as high performance message communication in their time and how that developed to the now to day known "standard computer network communication". It will be followed by a far more technical part that uses the High Performance Computer Network standards of the 90's, with 1 Gbit/sec systems as introduction for an in depth explanation of the three new 10 Gbit/s network and interconnect technology standards that exist already or emerge. If necessary for a good understanding some sidesteps will be included to explain important protocols as well as some necessary details of concerned Wide Area Network (WAN) standards details including some basics of wavelength multiplexing (DWDM). Some remarks will be made concerning the rapid expanding applications of networked storage.

A network flow model for load balancing in circuit-switched multicomputers

Science.gov (United States)

Bokhari, Shahid H.

1990-01-01

In multicomputers that utilize circuit switching or wormhole routing, communication overhead depends largely on link contention - the variation due to distance between nodes is negligible. This has a major impact on the load balancing problem. In this case, there are some nodes with excess load (sources) and others with deficit load (sinks) and it is required to find a matching of sources to sinks that avoids contention. The problem is made complex by the hardwired routing on currently available machines: the user can control only which nodes communicate but not how the messages are routed. Network flow models of message flow in the mesh and the hypercube were developed to solve this problem. The crucial property of these models is the correspondence between minimum cost flows and correctly routed messages. To solve a given load balancing problem, a minimum cost flow algorithm is applied to the network. This permits one to determine efficiently a maximum contention free matching of sources to sinks which, in turn, tells one how much of the given imbalance can be eliminated without contention.

On the network protocol performance evaluation for large scale communication system of nuclear plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Song, K. S.; Lee, T. H.; Kim, H. R.; Kim, D. H.; Ku, I. S.

1998-01-01

Computer technology has been dramatically advanced and it is now natural to apply digital network technology into nuclear plants. Communication architecture for nuclear plant defines the coordination of safety reactor control, balance of plant, subsystem utilities, and plant monitoring functions, and how they are connected and their user interface to guarantee plant performance and guarantee safety requirements. Therefore, to implement a digital network for control and monitoring systems of advanced nuclear plant needs systematic design and evaluation procedures because of responsive and hard real-time process characteristics of nuclear plant. In this paper, we evaluate several digital network protocols in terms of network delay, link failure effects to hard real-time requirements with full scale traffic

A Network-Based Data Envelope Analysis Model in a Dynamic Balanced Score Card

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mojtaba Akbarian

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Performance assessment during the time and along with strategies is the most important requirements of top managers. To assess the performance, a balanced score card (BSC along with strategic goals and a data envelopment analysis (DEA are used as powerful qualitative and quantitative tools, respectively. By integrating these two models, their strengths are used and their weaknesses are removed. In this paper, an integrated framework of the BSC and DEA models is proposed for measuring the efficiency during the time and along with strategies based on the time delay of the lag key performance indicators (KPIs of the BSC model. The causal relationships during the time among perspectives of the BSC model are drawn as dynamic BSC at first. Then, after identifying the network-DEA structure, a new objective function for measuring the efficiency of nine subsidiary refineries of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC during the time and along with strategies is developed.

Ankle taping does not impair performance in jump or balance tests.

Science.gov (United States)

Abián-Vicén, Javier; Alegre, Luis M; Fernández-Rodríguez, J Manuel; Lara, Amador J; Meana, Marta; Aguado, Xavier

2008-01-01

This study aimed to investigate the influence of prophylactic ankle taping on two balance tests (static and dynamic balance) and one jump test, in the push off and the landing phase. Fifteen active young subjects (age: 21.0 ± 4.4 years) without previous ankle injuries volunteered for the study. Each participant performed three tests in two different situations: with taping and without taping. The tests were a counter movement jump, static balance, and a dynamic posturography test. The tests and conditions were randomly performed. The path of the center of pressures was measured in the balance tests, and the vertical ground reaction forces were recorded during the push-off and landing phases of the counter movement jump. Ankle taping had no influence on balance performance or in the push off phase of the jump. However, the second peak vertical force value during the landing phase of the jump was 12% greater with ankle taping (0.66 BW, 95% CI -0.64 to 1.96). The use of prophylactic ankle taping had no influence on the balance or jump performance of healthy young subjects. In contrast, the taped ankle increased the second peak vertical force value, which could be related to a greater risk of injury produced by the accumulation of repeated impacts in sports where jumps are frequently performed. Key pointsAnkle taping has no influence on balance performance.Ankle taping does not impair performance during the push-off phase of the jump.Ankle taping could increase the risk of injury during landings by increasing peak forces.

Balance Performance Is Task Specific in Older Adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ayelet Dunsky

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Balance ability among the elderly is a key component in the activities of daily living and is divided into two types: static and dynamic. For clinicians who wish to assess the risk of falling among their elderly patients, it is unclear if more than one type of balance test can be used to measure their balance impairment. In this study, we examined the association between static balance measures and two dynamic balance field tests. One hundred and twelve community-dwelling older adults (mean age 74.6 participated in the study. They underwent the Tetrax static postural assessment and then performed the Timed Up and Go (TUG and the Functional Reach (FR Test as dynamic balance tests. In general, low-moderate correlations were found between the two types of balance tests. For women, age and static balance parameters explained 28.1–40.4% of the variance of TUG scores and 14.6–24% of the variance of FR scores. For men, age and static balance parameters explained 9.5–31.2% of the variance of TUG scores and 23.9–41.7% of the variance of FR scores. Based on our findings, it is suggested that a combination of both static and dynamic tests be used for assessing postural balance ability.

Convolutional neural networks with balanced batches for facial expressions recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Battini Sönmez, Elena; Cangelosi, Angelo

2017-03-01

This paper considers the issue of fully automatic emotion classification on 2D faces. In spite of the great effort done in recent years, traditional machine learning approaches based on hand-crafted feature extraction followed by the classification stage failed to develop a real-time automatic facial expression recognition system. The proposed architecture uses Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), which are built as a collection of interconnected processing elements to simulate the brain of human beings. The basic idea of CNNs is to learn a hierarchical representation of the input data, which results in a better classification performance. In this work we present a block-based CNN algorithm, which uses noise, as data augmentation technique, and builds batches with a balanced number of samples per class. The proposed architecture is a very simple yet powerful CNN, which can yield state-of-the-art accuracy on the very competitive benchmark algorithm of the Extended Cohn Kanade database.

Diagnosing Anomalous Network Performance with Confidence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Settlemyer, Bradley W [ORNL; Hodson, Stephen W [ORNL; Kuehn, Jeffery A [ORNL; Poole, Stephen W [ORNL

2011-04-01

Variability in network performance is a major obstacle in effectively analyzing the throughput of modern high performance computer systems. High performance interconnec- tion networks offer excellent best-case network latencies; how- ever, highly parallel applications running on parallel machines typically require consistently high levels of performance to adequately leverage the massive amounts of available computing power. Performance analysts have usually quantified network performance using traditional summary statistics that assume the observational data is sampled from a normal distribution. In our examinations of network performance, we have found this method of analysis often provides too little data to under- stand anomalous network performance. Our tool, Confidence, instead uses an empirically derived probability distribution to characterize network performance. In this paper we describe several instances where the Confidence toolkit allowed us to understand and diagnose network performance anomalies that we could not adequately explore with the simple summary statis- tics provided by traditional measurement tools. In particular, we examine a multi-modal performance scenario encountered with an Infiniband interconnection network and we explore the performance repeatability on the custom Cray SeaStar2 interconnection network after a set of software and driver updates.

The Nitrogen Balancing Act: Tracking the Environmental Performance of Food Production.

Science.gov (United States)

McLellan, Eileen L; Cassman, Kenneth G; Eagle, Alison J; Woodbury, Peter B; Sela, Shai; Tonitto, Christina; Marjerison, Rebecca D; van Es, Harold M

2018-03-01

Farmers, food supply-chain entities, and policymakers need a simple but robust indicator to demonstrate progress toward reducing nitrogen pollution associated with food production. We show that nitrogen balance-the difference between nitrogen inputs and nitrogen outputs in an agricultural production system-is a robust measure of nitrogen losses that is simple to calculate, easily understood, and based on readily available farm data. Nitrogen balance provides farmers with a means of demonstrating to an increasingly concerned public that they are succeeding in reducing nitrogen losses while also improving the overall sustainability of their farming operation. Likewise, supply-chain companies and policymakers can use nitrogen balance to track progress toward sustainability goals. We describe the value of nitrogen balance in translating environmental targets into actionable goals for farmers and illustrate the potential roles of science, policy, and agricultural support networks in helping farmers achieve them.

Self-Organization Scheme for Balanced Routing in Large-Scale Multi-Hop Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Badiu, Mihai Alin; Saad, David; Coon, Justin P.

2018-01-01

We propose a self-organization scheme for cost-effective and load-balanced routing in multi-hop networks. To avoid overloading nodes that provide favourable routing conditions, we assign each node with a cost function that penalizes high loads. Thus, finding routes to sink nodes is formulated...

Mobility-Aware and Load Balancing Based Clustering Algorithm for Energy Conservation in MANET

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

XU Li; ZHENG Bao-yu; GUO Gong-de

2005-01-01

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is one of wireless communication network architecture that has received a lot of attention. MANET is characterized by dynamic network topology and limited energy. With mobility-aware and load balancing based clustering algorithm (MLCA), this paper proposes a new topology management strategy to conserve energy. Performance simulation results show that the proposed MLCA strategy can balances the traffic load inside the whole network, so as to prolong the network lifetime, meanly, at the same time, achieve higher throughput ratio and network stability.

Balanced scorecard, Ethiopian public banks, Performance measureme

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Maru Shete

performance indicators (KPIs) and lack of planning and communication were observed .... building prototype Balanced Scorecards at pilot sites in their companies. ... customer satisfaction, supplier relationship/partnership, key accounts and so.

Robustness of cluster synchronous patterns in small-world networks with inter-cluster co-competition balance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Jianbao; Ma, Zhongjun; Chen, Guanrong

2014-01-01

All edges in the classical Watts and Strogatz's small-world network model are unweighted and cooperative (positive). By introducing competitive (negative) inter-cluster edges and assigning edge weights to mimic more realistic networks, this paper develops a modified model which possesses co-competitive weighted couplings and cluster structures while maintaining the common small-world network properties of small average shortest path lengths and large clustering coefficients. Based on theoretical analysis, it is proved that the new model with inter-cluster co-competition balance has an important dynamical property of robust cluster synchronous pattern formation. More precisely, clusters will neither merge nor split regardless of adding or deleting nodes and edges, under the condition of inter-cluster co-competition balance. Numerical simulations demonstrate the robustness of the model against the increase of the coupling strength and several topological variations

Robustness of cluster synchronous patterns in small-world networks with inter-cluster co-competition balance

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jianbao; Ma, Zhongjun; Chen, Guanrong

2014-06-01

All edges in the classical Watts and Strogatz's small-world network model are unweighted and cooperative (positive). By introducing competitive (negative) inter-cluster edges and assigning edge weights to mimic more realistic networks, this paper develops a modified model which possesses co-competitive weighted couplings and cluster structures while maintaining the common small-world network properties of small average shortest path lengths and large clustering coefficients. Based on theoretical analysis, it is proved that the new model with inter-cluster co-competition balance has an important dynamical property of robust cluster synchronous pattern formation. More precisely, clusters will neither merge nor split regardless of adding or deleting nodes and edges, under the condition of inter-cluster co-competition balance. Numerical simulations demonstrate the robustness of the model against the increase of the coupling strength and several topological variations.

Robustness of cluster synchronous patterns in small-world networks with inter-cluster co-competition balance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Jianbao [School of Science, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018 (China); Ma, Zhongjun, E-mail: mzj1234402@163.com [School of Mathematics and Computing Science, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004 (China); Chen, Guanrong [Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong (China)

2014-06-15

All edges in the classical Watts and Strogatz's small-world network model are unweighted and cooperative (positive). By introducing competitive (negative) inter-cluster edges and assigning edge weights to mimic more realistic networks, this paper develops a modified model which possesses co-competitive weighted couplings and cluster structures while maintaining the common small-world network properties of small average shortest path lengths and large clustering coefficients. Based on theoretical analysis, it is proved that the new model with inter-cluster co-competition balance has an important dynamical property of robust cluster synchronous pattern formation. More precisely, clusters will neither merge nor split regardless of adding or deleting nodes and edges, under the condition of inter-cluster co-competition balance. Numerical simulations demonstrate the robustness of the model against the increase of the coupling strength and several topological variations.

Self-reported balance status is not a reliable indicator of balance performance in adolescents at one-month post-concussion.

Science.gov (United States)

Rochefort, Coralie; Walters-Stewart, Coren; Aglipay, Mary; Barrowman, Nick; Zemek, Roger; Sveistrup, Heidi

2017-11-01

To determine if self-reported balance symptoms can be used as a proxy for measures of the center of pressure (COP) to identify balance deficits in a group of concussed adolescents. Case-control. Thirteen adolescents 1-month post-concussion who reported ongoing balance problems (Balance+), 20 adolescent 1-month post-concussion who reported no balance problems (Balance-), and 30 non-injured adolescents (control) completed a series of balance tests. Participants completed two 2-min trials standing on a Nintendo Wii Balance Board™ during which the COP under their feet was recorded: i) double-leg stance, eyes open; ii) double-leg stance, eyes closed. Participants also completed a dual-task condition combining a double-leg stance and a Stroop Colour-word test. Participants in both the Balance+ and Balance- group swayed over a larger ellipse area compared to the control group while completing the Eyes Closed (Balance+, p=0.002; Balance-, p=0.002) and Dual-Task (Balance+, p=0.001; Balance-, p=0.004) conditions and performed the Dual-Task condition with faster medio-lateral velocity (Balance+, p=0.003; Balance-, p=0.009). The participants in the Balance- group also swayed over a larger ellipse area compared to the control group while completing the Eyes Open condition (p=0.005). No significant differences were identified between the Balance+ and Balance- groups. At 1-month post-concussion, adolescents demonstrated balance deficits compared to non-injured adolescents regardless of whether they reported balance problems. These results suggest that self-reported balance status might not be an accurate reflection of balance performance following a concussion in adolescents. Copyright © 2017 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structured chaos shapes spike-response noise entropy in balanced neural networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guillaume eLajoie

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Large networks of sparsely coupled, excitatory and inhibitory cells occur throughout the brain. For many models of these networks, a striking feature is that their dynamics are chaotic and thus, are sensitive to small perturbations. How does this chaos manifest in the neural code? Specifically, how variable are the spike patterns that such a network produces in response to an input signal? To answer this, we derive a bound for a general measure of variability -- spike-train entropy. This leads to important insights on the variability of multi-cell spike pattern distributions in large recurrent networks of spiking neurons responding to fluctuating inputs. The analysis is based on results from random dynamical systems theory and is complemented by detailed numerical simulations. We find that the spike pattern entropy is an order of magnitude lower than what would be extrapolated from single cells. This holds despite the fact that network coupling becomes vanishingly sparse as network size grows -- a phenomenon that depends on ``extensive chaos, as previously discovered for balanced networks without stimulus drive. Moreover, we show how spike pattern entropy is controlled by temporal features of the inputs. Our findings provide insight into how neural networks may encode stimuli in the presence of inherently chaotic dynamics.

ANKLE TAPING DOES NOT IMPAIR PERFORMANCE IN JUMP OR BALANCE TESTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javier Abián-Vicén

2008-09-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate the influence of prophylactic ankle taping on two balance tests (static and dynamic balance and one jump test, in the push off and the landing phase. Fifteen active young subjects (age: 21.0 ± 4.4 years without previous ankle injuries volunteered for the study. Each participant performed three tests in two different situations: with taping and without taping. The tests were a counter movement jump, static balance, and a dynamic posturography test. The tests and conditions were randomly performed. The path of the center of pressures was measured in the balance tests, and the vertical ground reaction forces were recorded during the push-off and landing phases of the counter movement jump. Ankle taping had no influence on balance performance or in the push off phase of the jump. However, the second peak vertical force value during the landing phase of the jump was 12% greater with ankle taping (0.66 BW, 95% CI -0.64 to 1.96. The use of prophylactic ankle taping had no influence on the balance or jump performance of healthy young subjects. In contrast, the taped ankle increased the second peak vertical force value, which could be related to a greater risk of injury produced by the accumulation of repeated impacts in sports where jumps are frequently performed

Precursors predicted by artificial neural networks for mass balance calculations: Quantifying hydrothermal alteration in volcanic rocks

Science.gov (United States)

Trépanier, Sylvain; Mathieu, Lucie; Daigneault, Réal; Faure, Stéphane

2016-04-01

This study proposes an artificial neural networks-based method for predicting the unaltered (precursor) chemical compositions of hydrothermally altered volcanic rock. The method aims at predicting precursor's major components contents (SiO2, FeOT, MgO, CaO, Na2O, and K2O). The prediction is based on ratios of elements generally immobile during alteration processes; i.e. Zr, TiO2, Al2O3, Y, Nb, Th, and Cr, which are provided as inputs to the neural networks. Multi-layer perceptron neural networks were trained on a large dataset of least-altered volcanic rock samples that document a wide range of volcanic rock types, tectonic settings and ages. The precursors thus predicted are then used to perform mass balance calculations. Various statistics were calculated to validate the predictions of precursors' major components, which indicate that, overall, the predictions are precise and accurate. For example, rank-based correlation coefficients were calculated to compare predicted and analysed values from a least-altered test dataset that had not been used to train the networks. Coefficients over 0.87 were obtained for all components, except for Na2O (0.77), indicating that predictions for alkali might be less performant. Also, predictions are performant for most volcanic rock compositions, except for ultra-K rocks. The proposed method provides an easy and rapid solution to the often difficult task of determining appropriate volcanic precursor compositions to rocks modified by hydrothermal alteration. It is intended for large volcanic rock databases and is most useful, for example, to mineral exploration performed in complex or poorly known volcanic settings. The method is implemented as a simple C++ console program.

Emotional intelligence and job performance: The mediating role of work-family balance.

Science.gov (United States)

Weinzimmer, Laurence G; Baumann, Heidi M; Gullifor, Daniel P; Koubova, Veronika

2017-01-01

In this study, we examine the dynamics between emotional intelligence, work-family balance, and job performance. A review of the literature to date has shown distinct relationships between emotional intelligence to job performance and work-family balance to job performance. We utilize a sample of 233 respondents to empirically test our set of hypotheses that contend work-family balance mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance. Our results support these hypotheses. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Energy Efficient Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks Using Distributed Dynamic Load Balanced Clustering Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muthukkumar R.

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Cognitive Radio (CR is a promising and potential technique to enable secondary users (SUs or unlicenced users to exploit the unused spectrum resources effectively possessed by primary users (PUs or licenced users. The proven clustering approach is used to organize nodes in the network into the logical groups to attain energy efficiency, network scalability, and stability for improving the sensing accuracy in CR through cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS. In this paper, a distributed dynamic load balanced clustering (DDLBC algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, each member in the cluster is to calculate the cooperative gain, residual energy, distance, and sensing cost from the neighboring clusters to perform the optimal decision. Each member in a cluster participates in selecting a cluster head (CH through cooperative gain, and residual energy that minimises network energy consumption and enhances the channel sensing. First, we form the number of clusters using the Markov decision process (MDP model to reduce the energy consumption in a network. In this algorithm, CR users effectively utilize the PUs reporting time slots of unavailability. The simulation results reveal that the clusters convergence, energy efficiency, and accuracy of channel sensing increased considerably by using the proposed algorithm.

Energy Efficient Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks Using Distributed Dynamic Load Balanced Clustering Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muthukkumar R.

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Cognitive Radio (CR is a promising and potential technique to enable secondary users (SUs or unlicenced users to exploit the unused spectrum resources effectively possessed by primary users (PUs or licenced users. The proven clustering approach is used to organize nodes in the network into the logical groups to attain energy efficiency, network scalability, and stability for improving the sensing accuracy in CR through cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS. In this paper, a distributed dynamic load balanced clustering (DDLBC algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, each member in the cluster is to calculate the cooperative gain, residual energy, distance, and sensing cost from the neighboring clusters to perform the optimal decision. Each member in a cluster participates in selecting a cluster head (CH through cooperative gain, and residual energy that minimises network energy consumption and enhances the channel sensing. First, we form the number of clusters using the Markov decision process (MDP model to reduce the energy consumption in a network. In this algorithm, CR users effectively utilize the PUs reporting time slots of unavailability. The simulation results reveal that the clusters convergence, energy efficiency, and accuracy of channel sensing increased considerably by using the proposed algorithm.

EFFECTS OF CIRCADIAN RHYTHM ON BALANCE PERFORMANCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karagul Osman

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Introduction. The aim of the study was to examine the effect of circadian rhythm on dynamic balance performance and to determine the role of physical activity level, body temperature, chronotype, and gender in this possible effect. Material and

CRE deliberation concerning balancing regime developments for the natural gas transmission network in France

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2006-06-01

GRTgaz has presented a project of progressive changeover to a new market-based balancing system, according to the following principles: quantities of gas required to ensure transmission network balancing are purchased from or sold on the daily and intra-day market by transmission system operators (TSOs); a daily gas balancing price reflecting actual costs borne by every TSO is defined according to these purchases and sales; every day, each shipper residual position after use of the available flexibility and tolerance, is cleared off by transactions at the daily balancing gas price, under terms encouraging shippers to minimise their imbalance. In order to incorporate current development of the French market, which still has low liquidity, GRTgaz proposes to progressively develop the volume of its market transactions. Within this context, from 4 May to 6 June 2006, CRE organised a public consultation concerning balancing regime developments, a summary of which is presented. The last part concerns the CRE decisions. (A.L.B.)

performance performance analysis of gsm networks in minna

African Journals Online (AJOL)

eobe

in terms of key performance indicators (KPI) based on statistics performance indicators ... in this study. Keywords: GSM Network, Drive Test, KPI and Radio Frequency Network Optimization. 1. .... message (SMS) traffic or in scenarios where so.

Introducing the Balanced Scorecard: Creating Metrics to Measure Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Gumbus, Andra

2005-01-01

This experiential exercise presents the concept of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and applies it in a university setting. The Balanced Scorecard was developed 12 years ago and has grown in popularity and is used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500 companies as a performance measurement and strategic management tool. The BSC expands the traditional…

Improving the road network performance with dynamic route guidance by considering the indifference band of road users

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vreeswijk, J.D.; Landman, R.L.; Van Berkum, E.C.; Hegyi, A.; Hoogendoorn, S.P.; Van Arem, B.

2012-01-01

When applying dynamic route guidance to improve the network performance, it is important to balance the interests of the road authorities and the road users. In this paper we will illustrate how bounded rationality and indifference bands can be taken into account in dynamic route guidance to improve

Model Engine Performance Measurement From Force Balance Instrumentation

Science.gov (United States)

Jeracki, Robert J.

1998-01-01

A large scale model representative of a low-noise, high bypass ratio turbofan engine was tested for acoustics and performance in the NASA Lewis 9- by 15-Foot Low-Speed Wind Tunnel. This test was part of NASA's continuing Advanced Subsonic Technology Noise Reduction Program. The low tip speed fan, nacelle, and an un-powered core passage (with core inlet guide vanes) were simulated. The fan blades and hub are mounted on a rotating thrust and torque balance. The nacelle, bypass duct stators, and core passage are attached to a six component force balance. The two balance forces, when corrected for internal pressure tares, measure the total thrust-minus-drag of the engine simulator. Corrected for scaling and other effects, it is basically the same force that the engine supports would feel, operating at similar conditions. A control volume is shown and discussed, identifying the various force components of the engine simulator thrust and definitions of net thrust. Several wind tunnel runs with nearly the same hardware installed are compared, to identify the repeatability of the measured thrust-minus-drag. Other wind tunnel runs, with hardware changes that affected fan performance, are compared to the baseline configuration, and the thrust and torque effects are shown. Finally, a thrust comparison between the force balance and nozzle gross thrust methods is shown, and both yield very similar results.

Multiobjective flux balancing using the NISE method for metabolic network analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Young-Gyun; Lee, Dong-Yup; Lee, Sang Yup; Park, Sunwon

2009-01-01

Flux balance analysis (FBA) is well acknowledged as an analysis tool of metabolic networks in the framework of metabolic engineering. However, FBA has a limitation for solving a multiobjective optimization problem which considers multiple conflicting objectives. In this study, we propose a novel multiobjective flux balance analysis method, which adapts the noninferior set estimation (NISE) method (Solanki et al., 1993) for multiobjective linear programming (MOLP) problems. NISE method can generate an approximation of the Pareto curve for conflicting objectives without redundant iterations of single objective optimization. Furthermore, the flux distributions at each Pareto optimal solution can be obtained for understanding the internal flux changes in the metabolic network. The functionality of this approach is shown by applying it to a genome-scale in silico model of E. coli. Multiple objectives for the poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) [P(3HB)] production are considered simultaneously, and relationships among them are identified. The Pareto curve for maximizing succinic acid production vs. maximizing biomass production is used for the in silico analysis of various combinatorial knockout strains. This proposed method accelerates the strain improvement in the metabolic engineering by reducing computation time of obtaining the Pareto curve and analysis time of flux distribution at each Pareto optimal solution. (c) 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 2009.

Network performance analysis

CERN Document Server

Bonald, Thomas

2013-01-01

The book presents some key mathematical tools for the performance analysis of communication networks and computer systems.Communication networks and computer systems have become extremely complex. The statistical resource sharing induced by the random behavior of users and the underlying protocols and algorithms may affect Quality of Service.This book introduces the main results of queuing theory that are useful for analyzing the performance of these systems. These mathematical tools are key to the development of robust dimensioning rules and engineering methods. A number of examples i

The effect of single-task and dual-task balance exercise programs on balance performance in adults with osteoporosis: a randomized controlled preliminary trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Konak, H E; Kibar, S; Ergin, E S

2016-11-01

Osteoporosis is a serious disease characterized by muscle weakness in the lower extremities, shortened length of trunk, and increased dorsal kyphosis leading to poor balance performance. Although balance impairment increases in adults with osteoporosis, falls and fall-related injuries have been shown to occur mainly during the dual-task performance. Several studies have shown that dual-task performance was improved with specific repetitive dual-task exercises. The aims of this study were to compare the effect of single- and dual-task balance exercise programs on static balance, dynamic balance, and activity-specific balance confidence in adults with osteoporosis and to assess the effectiveness of dual-task balance training on gait speed under dual-task conditions. Older adults (N = 42) (age range, 45-88 years) with osteoporosis were randomly assigned into two groups. Single-task balance training group was given single-task balance exercises for 4 weeks, whereas dual-task balance training group received dual-task balance exercises. Participants received 45-min individualized training session, three times a week. Static balance was evaluated by one-leg stance (OLS) and a kinesthetic ability trainer (KAT) device. Dynamic balance was measured by the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Time Up and Go (TUG) test, and gait speed. Self-confidence was assessed with the Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC-6) scale. Assessments were performed at baseline and after the 4-week program. At the end of the treatment periods, KAT score, BBS score, time in OLS and TUG, gait speeds under single- and dual-task conditions, and ABC-6 scale scores improved significantly in all patients (p gait speeds under single- and dual-task conditions showed significantly greater improvement in the dual-task balance training group than in the single-task balance training group (p gait speeds showed greater improvement following the application of a specific type of dual-task exercise programs

An investigation and comparison on network performance analysis

OpenAIRE

Lanxiaopu, Mi

2012-01-01

This thesis is generally about network performance analysis. It contains two parts. The theory part summarizes what network performance is and inducts the methods of doing network performance analysis. To answer what network performance is, a study into what network services are is done. And based on the background research, there are two important network performance metrics: Network delay and Throughput should be included in network performance analysis. Among the methods of network a...

Self-organization in Balanced State Networks by STDP and Homeostatic Plasticity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Felix Effenberger

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Structural inhomogeneities in synaptic efficacies have a strong impact on population response dynamics of cortical networks and are believed to play an important role in their functioning. However, little is known about how such inhomogeneities could evolve by means of synaptic plasticity. Here we present an adaptive model of a balanced neuronal network that combines two different types of plasticity, STDP and synaptic scaling. The plasticity rules yield both long-tailed distributions of synaptic weights and firing rates. Simultaneously, a highly connected subnetwork of driver neurons with strong synapses emerges. Coincident spiking activity of several driver cells can evoke population bursts and driver cells have similar dynamical properties as leader neurons found experimentally. Our model allows us to observe the delicate interplay between structural and dynamical properties of the emergent inhomogeneities. It is simple, robust to parameter changes and able to explain a multitude of different experimental findings in one basic network.

Social Networks and Sales Performance

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Danny Pimentel Claro

2011-05-01

Full Text Available This paper argues that an informal network can itself be a basis for the increase in a sales manager’s performance. Informal networks create a structure that surpasses the formal hierarchical structure defined by the firm. We concentrated on the advice network and considered two different views of network structure that claim to have impact on performance. To explore this claim, we examined whether sales managers develop either a highly cohesive network structure (i.e. Coleman’s view or one containing structural holes (i.e. Burt’s view in order to achieve higher sales. We also investigated the matter of tie strength put forward by Granovetter in his seminal 1973 work. Census data was collected from about 500 personnel from an agricultural input retailer having 23 divisions. Estimates from a sample of 101 sales managers showed the importance of a highly cohesive structure (degree centrality for the three measures of sales manager’s performance. The strong ties have a positive impact on performance, suggesting the importance of building up strong bonds with network contacts. Sales managers’ age, time within the retailer and education also influence performance. These results imply that firms should stimulate contacts among personnel to spread technical and commercial information.

Load Balancing Metric with Diversity for Energy Efficient Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moad, Sofiane; Hansen, Morten Tranberg; Jurdak, Raja

2011-01-01

The expected number of transmission (ETX) represents a routing metric that considers the highly variable link qualities for a specific radio in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). To adapt to these differences, radio diversity is a recently explored solution for WSNs. In this paper, we propose...... an energy balancing metric which explores the diversity in link qualities present at different radios. The goal is to effectively use the energy of the network and therefore extend the network lifetime. The proposed metric takes into account the transmission and reception costs for a specific radio in order...... to choose an energy efficient radio. In addition, the metric uses the remaining energy of nodes in order to regulate the traffic so that critical nodes are avoided. We show by simulations that our metric can improve the network lifetime up to 20%....

Flux balance analysis of ammonia assimilation network in E. coli predicts preferred regulation point.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lu; Lai, Luhua; Ouyang, Qi; Tang, Chao

2011-01-25

Nitrogen assimilation is a critical biological process for the synthesis of biomolecules in Escherichia coli. The central ammonium assimilation network in E. coli converts carbon skeleton α-ketoglutarate and ammonium into glutamate and glutamine, which further serve as nitrogen donors for nitrogen metabolism in the cell. This reaction network involves three enzymes: glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), glutamine synthetase (GS) and glutamate synthase (GOGAT). In minimal media, E. coli tries to maintain an optimal growth rate by regulating the activity of the enzymes to match the availability of the external ammonia. The molecular mechanism and the strategy of the regulation in this network have been the research topics for many investigators. In this paper, we develop a flux balance model for the nitrogen metabolism, taking into account of the cellular composition and biosynthetic requirements for nitrogen. The model agrees well with known experimental results. Specifically, it reproduces all the (15)N isotope labeling experiments in the wild type and the two mutant (ΔGDH and ΔGOGAT) strains of E. coli. Furthermore, the predicted catalytic activities of GDH, GS and GOGAT in different ammonium concentrations and growth rates for the wild type, ΔGDH and ΔGOGAT strains agree well with the enzyme concentrations obtained from western blots. Based on this flux balance model, we show that GS is the preferred regulation point among the three enzymes in the nitrogen assimilation network. Our analysis reveals the pattern of regulation in this central and highly regulated network, thus providing insights into the regulation strategy adopted by the bacteria. Our model and methods may also be useful in future investigations in this and other networks.

Flux balance analysis of ammonia assimilation network in E. coli predicts preferred regulation point.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lu Wang

Full Text Available Nitrogen assimilation is a critical biological process for the synthesis of biomolecules in Escherichia coli. The central ammonium assimilation network in E. coli converts carbon skeleton α-ketoglutarate and ammonium into glutamate and glutamine, which further serve as nitrogen donors for nitrogen metabolism in the cell. This reaction network involves three enzymes: glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH, glutamine synthetase (GS and glutamate synthase (GOGAT. In minimal media, E. coli tries to maintain an optimal growth rate by regulating the activity of the enzymes to match the availability of the external ammonia. The molecular mechanism and the strategy of the regulation in this network have been the research topics for many investigators. In this paper, we develop a flux balance model for the nitrogen metabolism, taking into account of the cellular composition and biosynthetic requirements for nitrogen. The model agrees well with known experimental results. Specifically, it reproduces all the (15N isotope labeling experiments in the wild type and the two mutant (ΔGDH and ΔGOGAT strains of E. coli. Furthermore, the predicted catalytic activities of GDH, GS and GOGAT in different ammonium concentrations and growth rates for the wild type, ΔGDH and ΔGOGAT strains agree well with the enzyme concentrations obtained from western blots. Based on this flux balance model, we show that GS is the preferred regulation point among the three enzymes in the nitrogen assimilation network. Our analysis reveals the pattern of regulation in this central and highly regulated network, thus providing insights into the regulation strategy adopted by the bacteria. Our model and methods may also be useful in future investigations in this and other networks.

Network Performance Improvement under Epidemic Failures in Optical Transport Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fagertun, Anna Manolova; Ruepp, Sarah Renée

2013-01-01

In this paper we investigate epidemic failure spreading in large- scale GMPLS-controlled transport networks. By evaluating the effect of the epidemic failure spreading on the network, we design several strategies for cost-effective network performance improvement via differentiated repair times....... First we identify the most vulnerable and the most strategic nodes in the network. Then, via extensive simulations we show that strategic placement of resources for improved failure recovery has better performance than randomly assigning lower repair times among the network nodes. Our OPNET simulation...... model can be used during the network planning process for facilitating cost- effective network survivability design....

A Power Balance Aware Wireless Charger Deployment Method for Complete Coverage in Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tu-Liang Lin

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Traditional sensor nodes are usually battery powered, and the limited battery power constrains the overall lifespan of the sensors. Recently, wireless power transmission technology has been applied in wireless sensor networks (WSNs to transmit wireless power from the chargers to the sensor nodes and solve the limited battery power problem. The combination of wireless sensors and wireless chargers forms a new type of network called wireless rechargeable sensor networks (WRSNs. In this research, we focus on how to effectively deploy chargers to maximize the lifespan of a network. In WSNs, the sensor nodes near the sink consume more power than nodes far away from the sink because of frequent data forwarding. This important power unbalanced factor has not been considered, however, in previous charger deployment research. In this research, a power balance aware deployment (PBAD method is proposed to address the power unbalance in WRSNs and to design the charger deployment with maximum charging efficiency. The proposed deployment method is effectively aware of the existence of the sink node that would cause unbalanced power consumption in WRSNs. The simulation results show that the proposed PBAD algorithm performs better than other deployment methods, and fewer chargers are deployed as a result.

Static, dynamic balance and functional performance in subjects with and without plantar fasciitis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Geiseane Aguiar Gonçalves

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction: Plantar fasciitis (PF is characterized by non-inflammatory degeneration and pain under the heel, and is one of the most common foot complaints. The compensations and adjustments made to decrease the discomfort caused by the disease are clinical findings and can be a factor that contributes to impaired balance and decreased functional performance. Objective: To compare functional performance as well as static and dynamic balance among subjects with and without PF. Methods: The sample consisted of 124 subjects of both sexes aged 20-60 years. Participants were divided into two groups: a bilateral PF group (PFG; n = 62 and a control group (CG, n = 62. The following outcomes were analyzed: static and dynamic balance (using functional tests and functional performance (using a questionnaire. We used Student’s t test for independent samples to compare variables between the groups. The alpha error was set at 0.05. Results: Subjects with PF showed greater impairment in their overall dynamic balance performance (p < 0.001 than the control group, except for left posteromedial movement (p = 0.19. The CG showed showed better functional performance (p < 0.001 than the PF group. There was no difference between groups for the variable static balance on stable (p = 0.160 and unstable surfaces (p = 0.085. Conclusion: Subjects with PF displayed smaller reach distances in the overall Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT, demonstrating a deficit in dynamic balance and functional performance when compared with healthy subjects.

Network-Friendly Gossiping

Science.gov (United States)

Serbu, Sabina; Rivière, Étienne; Felber, Pascal

The emergence of large-scale distributed applications based on many-to-many communication models, e.g., broadcast and decentralized group communication, has an important impact on the underlying layers, notably the Internet routing infrastructure. To make an effective use of network resources, protocols should both limit the stress (amount of messages) on each infrastructure entity like routers and links, and balance as much as possible the load in the network. Most protocols use application-level metrics such as delays to improve efficiency of content dissemination or routing, but the extend to which such application-centric optimizations help reduce and balance the load imposed to the infrastructure is unclear. In this paper, we elaborate on the design of such network-friendly protocols and associated metrics. More specifically, we investigate random-based gossip dissemination. We propose and evaluate different ways of making this representative protocol network-friendly while keeping its desirable properties (robustness and low delays). Simulations of the proposed methods using synthetic and real network topologies convey and compare their abilities to reduce and balance the load while keeping good performance.

Emergence of Functional Specificity in Balanced Networks with Synaptic Plasticity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sadra Sadeh

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In rodent visual cortex, synaptic connections between orientation-selective neurons are unspecific at the time of eye opening, and become to some degree functionally specific only later during development. An explanation for this two-stage process was proposed in terms of Hebbian plasticity based on visual experience that would eventually enhance connections between neurons with similar response features. For this to work, however, two conditions must be satisfied: First, orientation selective neuronal responses must exist before specific recurrent synaptic connections can be established. Second, Hebbian learning must be compatible with the recurrent network dynamics contributing to orientation selectivity, and the resulting specific connectivity must remain stable for unspecific background activity. Previous studies have mainly focused on very simple models, where the receptive fields of neurons were essentially determined by feedforward mechanisms, and where the recurrent network was small, lacking the complex recurrent dynamics of large-scale networks of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Here we studied the emergence of functionally specific connectivity in large-scale recurrent networks with synaptic plasticity. Our results show that balanced random networks, which already exhibit highly selective responses at eye opening, can develop feature-specific connectivity if appropriate rules of synaptic plasticity are invoked within and between excitatory and inhibitory populations. If these conditions are met, the initial orientation selectivity guides the process of Hebbian learning and, as a result, functionally specific and a surplus of bidirectional connections emerge. Our results thus demonstrate the cooperation of synaptic plasticity and recurrent dynamics in large-scale functional networks with realistic receptive fields, highlight the role of inhibition as a critical element in this process, and paves the road for further computational

Balanced Scorecard: Organizational performance management instrument

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicoleta CONSTANDACHE

2015-11-01

Full Text Available In order to have a successful strategy, a company must set clear strategic objectives, such as: the desired financial performances, a description of its customers, of the internal processes within the company, and of the employees’ abilities, knowledge and competences. To outline a general image of the organizational performance evaluation, we proposed the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard model, which includes five development directions. By implementing this management model within one organization, we can test the effect of some decisions before their implementation by managing some performance and risk key indicators. All these indicators categories pursue the integrated feature through the insurance the companies’ long-term success, both at global and individual level, which supposes both the vertical and horizontal integration.

Evaluating the balanced scorecard at the University Health Network: an impact assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Justin; Bell, Robert; Khalfan, Adil; Lindquist, Evert

2008-01-01

The balanced scorecard (BSC) has become increasing popular in healthcare organizations. A recent study conducted at the University Health Network in Toronto explored the extent to which the BSC has focused and aligned various organizational units and departments around shared goals and objectives. The evaluation also assessed the BSC's impact on front-line staff and how the development and rollout of the BSC should be modified in the next planning iteration.

Production Balance of Ship Erection

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

JIANG Ru-hong; TAN Jia-hua; LIU Cun-gen

2008-01-01

A network plan model of ship erection was established based on the network planning technologyand the work-package breakdown system. The load-oriented production control method was introduced to buildup a throughput diagram model thus it is possible to describe the ship erection process numerically. Based onthe digitaiized models some cases of production balance of ship erection were studied and three balance indexeswere put forward, they are the load balance rate, the input manpower balance rate and the maximum gantrycrane operating times. Such an analytic method based on the balance evaluation is the important foundationfor digitization and intelligentization of shipyard production management.

Analysis of Network Parameters Influencing Performance of Hybrid Multimedia Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dominik Kovac

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Multimedia networks is an emerging subject that currently attracts the attention of research and industrial communities. This environment provides new entertainment services and business opportunities merged with all well-known network services like VoIP calls or file transfers. Such a heterogeneous system has to be able satisfy all network and end-user requirements which are increasing constantly. Therefore the simulation tools enabling deep analysis in order to find the key performance indicators and factors which influence the overall quality for specific network service the most are highly needed. This paper provides a study on the network parameters like communication technology, routing protocol, QoS mechanism, etc. and their effect on the performance of hybrid multimedia network. The analysis was performed in OPNET Modeler environment and the most interesting results are discussed at the end of this paper

Export policies for multi-domain WDM networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Manolova, Anna Vasileva; Ruepp, Sarah Renée

2010-01-01

We analyze the performance of six export policies for a multi-domain routing protocol in WDM networks. We show that providing many AS-disjoint paths for survivability and load-balancing does not necessarily guarantee the lowest connection blocking......We analyze the performance of six export policies for a multi-domain routing protocol in WDM networks. We show that providing many AS-disjoint paths for survivability and load-balancing does not necessarily guarantee the lowest connection blocking...

Evaluate Data Center Network Performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pilimon, Artur

through a data center network, which is usually built with layer 2 switches and layer 3 routers. The topology of the data center network is crucial for latency in the data communication to and from the data center and between servers in the data center. Tests can be conducted to measure latency and other...... Engineering, scientists evaluate data center network topologies with an SDN-based (Software-Defined Networking) control framework measuring network performance – primarily latency. This can be used to plan data center scaling by testing how a new topology will function before changes are made. Data center...... performance parameters for different data center network topologies. It is however important that tests can be repeated and reproduced to have comparable information from the tests. There are, of course, many topologies that can be used for data center networks. At DTU Fotonik, Department of Photonics...

Decentralized SINR Balancing in Cognitive Radio Networks

KAUST Repository

Dhifallah, Oussama Najeeb

2016-07-07

This paper considers the downlink of a cognitive radio (CR) network formed by multiple primary and secondary transmitters, where each multi-antenna transmitter serves a pre-known set of single-antenna users. The paper assumes that the secondary and primary transmitters can transmit simultaneously their data over the same frequency bands, so as to achieve a high system spectrum efficiency. The paper considers the downlink balancing problem of maximizing the minimum signal-to-interference-plus noise ratio (SINR) of the secondary transmitters subject to both total power constraint of the secondary transmitters, and maximum interference constraint at each primary user due to secondary transmissions. The paper proposes solving the problem using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), which leads to a distributed implementation through limited information exchange across the coupled secondary transmitters. The paper additionally proposes a solution that guarantees feasibility at each iteration. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed solution converges to the centralized solution in a reasonable number of iterations.

Performance analysis of wavelength/spatial coding system with fixed in-phase code matrices in OCDMA network

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Cheng-Mu; Liang, Tsair-Chun

2011-12-01

This paper proposes a wavelength/spatial (W/S) coding system with fixed in-phase code (FIPC) matrix in the optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) network. A scheme is presented to form the FIPC matrix which is applied to construct the W/S OCDMA network. The encoder/decoder in the W/S OCDMA network is fully able to eliminate the multiple-access-interference (MAI) at the balanced photo-detectors (PD), according to fixed in-phase cross correlation. The phase-induced intensity noise (PIIN) related to the power square is markedly suppressed in the receiver by spreading the received power into each PD while the net signal power is kept the same. Simulation results show that the W/S OCDMA network based on the FIPC matrices cannot only completely remove the MAI but effectively suppress the PIIN to upgrade the network performance.

A Cooperative Communication Model Tailored for Energy Balance in Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Camila F. Rêgo

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN are characterized by their capacity of monitoring the environment, gathering and sharing information. Nodes in a WSN usually cooperate in the task of forwarding the sensed data to a sink node for later retrieval and analysis. The success of this task depends on the availability of efficient routes that meet the application requirements. As topology may change overtime, alternatives to improve and maintain network connectivity are highly desired. In this context, Cooperative Communication (CC emerged as an alternative to improve network connectivity. Despite its benefits, CC-links are known to have higher energy demands as compared to traditional, direct, links. In particular, CC-links require the source node to expend more power than others nodes, shortening their life span. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a new Cooperative Communication model, capable of increasing the energy balance of the CC-links while improving network connectivity. Simulation results show that, compared to other CC schemes, the source node of a Cooperative Communication reduces the amount of expended energy by 68% in the evaluated settings.

Effect of Wii-intervention on balance of children with poor motor performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mombarg, Remo; Jelsma, Dorothee; Hartman, Esther

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of training with the Wii-balance board on balance and balance-related skills of children with poor motor performance. Twenty-nine children (23 boys, 6 girls; aged 7-12 years) participated in this study and were randomly assigned to an

Effect of Wii-intervention on balance of children with poor motor performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mombarg, Remo; Jelsma, Dorothee; Hartman, Esther

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of training with the Wii-balance board on balance and balance-related skills of children with poor motor performance. Twenty-nine children (23 boys, 6 girls; aged 7–12 years) participated in this study and were randomly assigned to an

Balance Performance of Deaf Children With and Without Cochlear Implants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amir-Abbas Ebrahimi

2016-12-01

Full Text Available  The aim of this study was to compare the static and dynamic balance performance of deaf children with and without cochlear implants. This is a cross-sectional study of 145 school children, aged between 7 and 12 years comprising 85 children with congenital or early acquired bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss (the hearing loss group and 60 normal hearing aged-matched control counterparts were assessed using the balance subtest of Bruininks-Oseretsky test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP. The hearing loss group, 50 without cochlear implants (the non-implant group and 35 of them with unilateral cochlear implants (the implant group were recruited from schools for the deaf and normal hearing children (the control group randomly selected from two randomly selected elementary schools of Tehran city. The scores were analyzed using one-way ANOVA. The total score of deaf children especially the implant group were significantly lower than the control group P<0.001. The balance performance of the control group was better than the implant group in all of the items as well as the non-implant group except the fourth tested item (walking forward on a line (P<0.05. The balance score of the implant group was significantly lower than the non-implant group except for the third tested item (standing on the preferred leg on a balance beam with eyes closed. The findings suggested that deaf children, specifically those with cochlear implants are at risk for motor and balance deficits. Thus, vestibular and motor evaluations, as well as interventions to improve balance and motor skills, should be prioritized for this population.

Determinants of sport-specific postural control strategy and balance performance of amateur rugby players.

Science.gov (United States)

Chow, Gary C C; Fong, Shirley S M; Chung, Joanne W Y; Chung, Louisa M Y; Ma, Ada W W; Macfarlane, Duncan J

2016-11-01

Postural control strategy and balance performance of rugby players are important yet under-examined issues. This study aimed to examine the differences in balance strategy and balance performance between amateur rugby players and non-players, and to explore training- and injury-related factors that may affect rugby players' balance outcomes. Cross-sectional and exploratory study. Forty-five amateur rugby players and 41 healthy active individuals participated in the study. Balance performance and balance strategies were assessed using the sensory organization test (SOT) of the Smart Equitest computerized dynamic posturography machine. Rugby training history and injury history were solicited from the participants. The SOT strategy scores were 1.99-54.90% lower in the rugby group than in the control group (prugby group than in the control group (prugby training (in years) was independently associated with the SOT condition 6 strategy score, explaining 15.7% of its variance (p=0.006). There was no association between SOT condition 6 strategy/equilibrium scores and injury history among the rugby players (p>0.05). Amateur rugby players demonstrated inferior balance strategy and balance performance compared to their non-training counterparts. Their suboptimal balance strategy was associated with insufficient training experience but not with history of injury. Copyright © 2016 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

WiMAX network performance monitoring & optimization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Qi; Dam, H

2008-01-01

frequency reuse, capacity planning, proper network dimensioning, multi-class data services and so on. Furthermore, as a small operator we also want to reduce the demand for sophisticated technicians and man labour hours. To meet these critical demands, we design a generic integrated network performance......In this paper we present our WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) network performance monitoring and optimization solution. As a new and small WiMAX network operator, there are many demanding issues that we have to deal with, such as limited available frequency resource, tight...... this integrated network performance monitoring and optimization system in our WiMAX networks. This integrated monitoring and optimization system has such good flexibility and scalability that individual function component can be used by other operators with special needs and more advanced function components can...

Test-bed Assessment of Communication Technologies for a Power-Balancing Controller

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Findrik, Mislav; Pedersen, Rasmus; Hasenleithner, Eduard

2016-01-01

and control. In this paper, we present a Smart Grid test-bed that integrates various communication technologies and deploys a power balancing controller for LV grids. Control performance of the introduced power balancing controller is subsequently investigated and its robustness to communication network cross......Due to growing need for sustainable energy, increasing number of different renewable energy resources are being connected into distribution grids. In order to efficiently manage a decentralized power generation units, the smart grid will rely on communication networks for information exchange...

Performance enhancement using a balanced scorecard in a Patient-centered Medical Home.

Science.gov (United States)

Fields, Scott A; Cohen, Deborah

2011-01-01

Oregon Health & Science University Family Medicine implemented a balanced scorecard within our clinics that embraces the inherent tensions between care quality, financial productivity, and operational efficiency. This data-driven performance improvement process involved: (1) consensus-building around specific indicators to be measured, (2) developing and refining the balanced scorecard, and (3) using the balanced scorecard in the quality improvement process. Developing and implementing the balanced scorecard stimulated an important culture shift among clinics; practice members now actively use data to recognize successes, understand emerging problems, and make changes in response to these problems. Our experience shows how Patient-centered Medical Homes can be enhanced through use of information technology and evidence-based tools that support improved decision making and performance and help practices develop into learning organizations.

Performance of the hybrid wireless mesh protocol for wireless mesh networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Boye, Magnus; Staalhagen, Lars

2010-01-01

Wireless mesh networks offer a new way of providing end-user access and deploying network infrastructure. Though mesh networks offer a price competitive solution to wired networks, they also come with a set of new challenges such as optimal path selection, channel utilization, and load balancing....... and proactive. Two scenarios of different node density are considered for both path selection modes. The results presented in this paper are based on a simulation model of the HWMP specification in the IEEE 802.11s draft 4.0 implemented in OPNET Modeler....

Artificial Astrocytes Improve Neural Network Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Porto-Pazos, Ana B.; Veiguela, Noha; Mesejo, Pablo; Navarrete, Marta; Alvarellos, Alberto; Ibáñez, Oscar; Pazos, Alejandro; Araque, Alfonso

2011-01-01

Compelling evidence indicates the existence of bidirectional communication between astrocytes and neurons. Astrocytes, a type of glial cells classically considered to be passive supportive cells, have been recently demonstrated to be actively involved in the processing and regulation of synaptic information, suggesting that brain function arises from the activity of neuron-glia networks. However, the actual impact of astrocytes in neural network function is largely unknown and its application in artificial intelligence remains untested. We have investigated the consequences of including artificial astrocytes, which present the biologically defined properties involved in astrocyte-neuron communication, on artificial neural network performance. Using connectionist systems and evolutionary algorithms, we have compared the performance of artificial neural networks (NN) and artificial neuron-glia networks (NGN) to solve classification problems. We show that the degree of success of NGN is superior to NN. Analysis of performances of NN with different number of neurons or different architectures indicate that the effects of NGN cannot be accounted for an increased number of network elements, but rather they are specifically due to astrocytes. Furthermore, the relative efficacy of NGN vs. NN increases as the complexity of the network increases. These results indicate that artificial astrocytes improve neural network performance, and established the concept of Artificial Neuron-Glia Networks, which represents a novel concept in Artificial Intelligence with implications in computational science as well as in the understanding of brain function. PMID:21526157

Artificial astrocytes improve neural network performance.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana B Porto-Pazos

Full Text Available Compelling evidence indicates the existence of bidirectional communication between astrocytes and neurons. Astrocytes, a type of glial cells classically considered to be passive supportive cells, have been recently demonstrated to be actively involved in the processing and regulation of synaptic information, suggesting that brain function arises from the activity of neuron-glia networks. However, the actual impact of astrocytes in neural network function is largely unknown and its application in artificial intelligence remains untested. We have investigated the consequences of including artificial astrocytes, which present the biologically defined properties involved in astrocyte-neuron communication, on artificial neural network performance. Using connectionist systems and evolutionary algorithms, we have compared the performance of artificial neural networks (NN and artificial neuron-glia networks (NGN to solve classification problems. We show that the degree of success of NGN is superior to NN. Analysis of performances of NN with different number of neurons or different architectures indicate that the effects of NGN cannot be accounted for an increased number of network elements, but rather they are specifically due to astrocytes. Furthermore, the relative efficacy of NGN vs. NN increases as the complexity of the network increases. These results indicate that artificial astrocytes improve neural network performance, and established the concept of Artificial Neuron-Glia Networks, which represents a novel concept in Artificial Intelligence with implications in computational science as well as in the understanding of brain function.

Artificial astrocytes improve neural network performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Porto-Pazos, Ana B; Veiguela, Noha; Mesejo, Pablo; Navarrete, Marta; Alvarellos, Alberto; Ibáñez, Oscar; Pazos, Alejandro; Araque, Alfonso

2011-04-19

Compelling evidence indicates the existence of bidirectional communication between astrocytes and neurons. Astrocytes, a type of glial cells classically considered to be passive supportive cells, have been recently demonstrated to be actively involved in the processing and regulation of synaptic information, suggesting that brain function arises from the activity of neuron-glia networks. However, the actual impact of astrocytes in neural network function is largely unknown and its application in artificial intelligence remains untested. We have investigated the consequences of including artificial astrocytes, which present the biologically defined properties involved in astrocyte-neuron communication, on artificial neural network performance. Using connectionist systems and evolutionary algorithms, we have compared the performance of artificial neural networks (NN) and artificial neuron-glia networks (NGN) to solve classification problems. We show that the degree of success of NGN is superior to NN. Analysis of performances of NN with different number of neurons or different architectures indicate that the effects of NGN cannot be accounted for an increased number of network elements, but rather they are specifically due to astrocytes. Furthermore, the relative efficacy of NGN vs. NN increases as the complexity of the network increases. These results indicate that artificial astrocytes improve neural network performance, and established the concept of Artificial Neuron-Glia Networks, which represents a novel concept in Artificial Intelligence with implications in computational science as well as in the understanding of brain function.

Performance modeling of network data services

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Haynes, R.A.; Pierson, L.G.

1997-01-01

Networks at major computational organizations are becoming increasingly complex. The introduction of large massively parallel computers and supercomputers with gigabyte memories are requiring greater and greater bandwidth for network data transfers to widely dispersed clients. For networks to provide adequate data transfer services to high performance computers and remote users connected to them, the networking components must be optimized from a combination of internal and external performance criteria. This paper describes research done at Sandia National Laboratories to model network data services and to visualize the flow of data from source to sink when using the data services.

A balanced strategy in managing steam generator thermal performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu, M. H.; Nelson, P. R.

2009-01-01

This paper presents a balanced strategy in managing thermal performance of steam generator designed to deliver rated megawatt thermal (MWt) and megawatt electric (MWe) power without loss with some amount of thermal margin. A steam generator (SG) is a boiling heat exchanger whose thermal performance may degrade because of steam pressure loss. In other words, steam pressure loss is an indicator of thermal performance degradation. Steam pressure loss is mainly a result of either 1) tube scale induced poor boiling or 2) tube plugging historically resulting from tubing corrosion, wear due to flow induced tube vibration or loose parts impact. Thermal performance degradation was historically due to tube plugging but more recently it is due to poor boiling caused by more bad than good constituents of feedwater impurities. The whole SG industry still concentrates solely on maintenance programs towards preventing causes for tube plugging and yet almost no programs on maintaining adequate boiling of fouled tubes. There can be an acceptable amount of tube scale that provides excellent boiling capacity without tubing corrosion, as operational experience has repeatedly demonstrated. Therefore, future maintenance has to come up balanced programs for allocating limited resources in both maintaining good boiling capacity and preventing tube plugging. This paper discusses also thermal performance degradation due to feedwater impurity induced blockage of tube support plate and thus subsequent water level oscillations, and how to mitigate them. This paper provides a predictive management of tube scale for maintaining adequate steam pressure and stable water level without loss in MWt/MWe or recovering from steam pressure loss or water level oscillations. This paper offers a balanced strategy in managing SG thermal performance to fulfill its mission. Such a strategy is even more important in view of the industry trend in pursuing extended power uprate as high as 20 percent

Fear of Falling in Women with Fibromyalgia and Its Relation with Number of Falls and Balance Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Collado-Mateo, D; Gallego-Diaz, J M; Adsuar, J C; Domínguez-Muñoz, F J; Olivares, P R; Gusi, N

2015-01-01

To evaluate fear of falling, number of falls, and balance performance in women with FM and to examine the relationship between these variables and others, such as balance performance, quality of life, age, pain, and impact of fibromyalgia. A total of 240 women participated in this cross-sectional study. Of these, 125 had fibromyalgia. Several variables were assessed: age, fear of falling from 0 to 100, number of falls, body composition, balance performance, lower limb strength, health-related quality of life, and impact of fibromyalgia. Women with fibromyalgia reported more falls and more fear of falling. Fear of falling was associated with number of falls in the last year, stiffness, perceived balance problems, impact of FM, and HRQoL whereas the number of falls was related to fear of falling, balance performance with eyes closed, pain, tenderness to touch level, anxiety, self-reported balance problems, impact of FM, and HRQoL. FM has an impact on fear of falling, balance performance, and number of falls. Perceived balance problems seem to be more closely associated with fear of falling than objective balance performance.

Ankle Taping Does Not Impair Performance in Jump or Balance Tests

OpenAIRE

Abián-Vicén, Javier; Alegre, Luis M.; Fernández-Rodríguez, J. Manuel; Lara, Amador J.; Meana, Marta; Aguado, Xavier

2008-01-01

This study aimed to investigate the influence of prophylactic ankle taping on two balance tests (static and dynamic balance) and one jump test, in the push off and the landing phase. Fifteen active young subjects (age: 21.0 ± 4.4 years) without previous ankle injuries volunteered for the study. Each participant performed three tests in two different situations: with taping and without taping. The tests were a counter movement jump, static balance, and a dynamic posturography test. The tests a...

Performance Estimation of Networked Business Models: Case Study on a Finnish eHealth Service Project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marikka Heikkilä

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The objective of this paper is to propose and demonstrate a framework for estimating performance in a networked business model. Design/methodology/approach: Our approach is design science, utilising action research in studying a case of four independent firms in Health & Wellbeing sector aiming to jointly provide a new service for business and private customers. The duration of the research study is 3 years. Findings: We propose that a balanced set of performance indicators can be defined by paying attention to all main components of the business model, enriched with of network collaboration. The results highlight the importance of measuring all main components of the business model and also the business network partners’ view on trust, contracts and fairness. Research implications: This article contributes to the business model literature by combining business modelling with performance evaluation. The article points out that it is essential to create metrics that can be applied to evaluate and improve the business model blueprints, but it is also important to measure business collaboration aspects. Practical implications: Companies have already adopted Business model canvas or similar business model tools to innovate new business models. We suggest that companies continue their business model innovation work by agreeing on a set of performance metrics, building on the business model components model enriched with measures of network collaboration. Originality/value: This article contributes to the business model literature and praxis by combining business modelling with performance evaluation.

Yoga lessons for consciousness research: a paralimbic network balancing brain resource allocation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hans C Lou

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Consciousness has been proposed to play a key role in shaping flexible learning and as such is thought to confer an evolutionary advantage. Attention and awareness are the perhaps most important underlying processes, yet their precise relationship is presently unclear. Both of these processes must, however, serve the evolutionary imperatives of survival and procreation. They are thus intimately bound by reward and emotion to help to prioritize efficient brain resource allocation in order to predict and optimize behaviour. Here we show how this process is served by a paralimbic network consisting primarily of regions located on the midline of the human brain. Using many different techniques, experiments have demonstrated that this network is effective and specific for self-awareness and contributes to the sense of unity of consciousness by acting as a common neural path for a wide variety of conscious experiences. Interestingly, haemodynamic activity in the network decreases with focusing on external stimuli, which has led to the idea of a default mode network. This network is one of many networks that wax and vane as resources are allocated to accommodate the different cyclical needs of the organism primarily related the fundamental pleasures afforded by evolution: food, sex and conspecifics. Here we hypothesize, however, that the paralimbic network serves a crucial role in balancing and regulating brain resource allocation, and discuss how it can be thought of as a link between current theories of so-called default mode, resting state networks and global workspace. We show how major developmental disorders of self-awareness and self-control can arise from problems in the paralimbic network as demonstrated here by the example of Asperger syndrome. We conclude that attention, awareness and emotion are integrated by a paralimbic network that helps to efficiently allocate brain resources to optimize behaviour and help survival.

Energy Balance Routing Algorithm Based on Virtual MIMO Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianpo Li

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Wireless sensor networks are usually energy limited and therefore an energy-efficient routing algorithm is desired for prolonging the network lifetime. In this paper, we propose a new energy balance routing algorithm which has the following three improvements over the conventional LEACH algorithm. Firstly, we propose a new cluster head selection scheme by taking into consideration the remaining energy and the most recent energy consumption of the nodes and the entire network. In this way, the sensor nodes with smaller remaining energy or larger energy consumption will be much less likely to be chosen as cluster heads. Secondly, according to the ratio of remaining energy to distance, cooperative nodes are selected to form virtual MIMO structures. It mitigates the uneven distribution of clusters and the unbalanced energy consumption of the whole network. Thirdly, we construct a comprehensive energy consumption model, which can reflect more realistically the practical energy consumption. Numerical simulations analyze the influences of cooperative node numbers and cluster head node numbers on the network lifetime. It is shown that the energy consumption of the proposed routing algorithm is lower than the conventional LEACH algorithm and for the simulation example the network lifetime is prolonged about 25%.

A small chance of paradise —Equivalence of balanced states

Science.gov (United States)

Krawczyk, M. J.; Kaluzny, S.; Kulakowski, K.

2017-06-01

A social network is modeled by a complete graph of N nodes, with interpersonal relations represented by links. In the framework of the Heider balance theory, we prove numerically that the probability of each balanced state is the same. This means in particular, that the probability of the paradise state, where all relations are positive, is 21-N . The proof is performed within two models. In the first, relations are changing continuously in time, and the proof is performed only for N = 3 with the methods of nonlinear dynamics. The second model is the Constrained Triad Dynamics, as introduced by Antal, Krapivsky and Redner in 2005. In the latter case, the proof makes use of the symmetries of the network of system states and it is completed for 3≤ N≤ 7 .

Using balance training to improve the performance of youth basketball players.

Science.gov (United States)

Boccolini, Gabriele; Brazzit, Alessandro; Bonfanti, Luca; Alberti, Giampietro

2013-08-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of 12 weeks of balance training to improve the balance and vertical jump abilities of young basketball players. Twenty-three players from two teams in the Under Fifteen Basketball Excellence category participated in the study. Participants were divided into two training groups: balance training (BAL, n  = 11) and isotonic training (ISO, n  = 12). Both groups were tested for balance and vertical jumps at the beginning of the competitive season and at the end of 12 weeks of specific training programme. All of the tests were performed in sustained bipodalic and monopodalic (both right and left) positions. The results showed that players who participated in balance training for 12 weeks, compared to players who trained with isotonic machines, exhibited a significantly increase in balance (bipodalic 28.3 %; right 41.4 %; left 45.8 %; p  training using unstable boards was an effective training method for improving balance and the vertical jump, which is a basketball-specific action that frequently occurs in this sport.

Fear of Falling in Women with Fibromyalgia and Its Relation with Number of Falls and Balance Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. Collado-Mateo

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. To evaluate fear of falling, number of falls, and balance performance in women with FM and to examine the relationship between these variables and others, such as balance performance, quality of life, age, pain, and impact of fibromyalgia. Methods. A total of 240 women participated in this cross-sectional study. Of these, 125 had fibromyalgia. Several variables were assessed: age, fear of falling from 0 to 100, number of falls, body composition, balance performance, lower limb strength, health-related quality of life, and impact of fibromyalgia. Results. Women with fibromyalgia reported more falls and more fear of falling. Fear of falling was associated with number of falls in the last year, stiffness, perceived balance problems, impact of FM, and HRQoL whereas the number of falls was related to fear of falling, balance performance with eyes closed, pain, tenderness to touch level, anxiety, self-reported balance problems, impact of FM, and HRQoL. Conclusion. FM has an impact on fear of falling, balance performance, and number of falls. Perceived balance problems seem to be more closely associated with fear of falling than objective balance performance.

Ecological network analysis for a virtual water network.

Science.gov (United States)

Fang, Delin; Chen, Bin

2015-06-02

The notions of virtual water flows provide important indicators to manifest the water consumption and allocation between different sectors via product transactions. However, the configuration of virtual water network (VWN) still needs further investigation to identify the water interdependency among different sectors as well as the network efficiency and stability in a socio-economic system. Ecological network analysis is chosen as a useful tool to examine the structure and function of VWN and the interactions among its sectors. A balance analysis of efficiency and redundancy is also conducted to describe the robustness (RVWN) of VWN. Then, network control analysis and network utility analysis are performed to investigate the dominant sectors and pathways for virtual water circulation and the mutual relationships between pairwise sectors. A case study of the Heihe River Basin in China shows that the balance between efficiency and redundancy is situated on the left side of the robustness curve with less efficiency and higher redundancy. The forestation, herding and fishing sectors and industrial sectors are found to be the main controllers. The network tends to be more mutualistic and synergic, though some competitive relationships that weaken the virtual water circulation still exist.

SINR balancing in the downlink of cognitive radio networks with imperfect channel knowledge

KAUST Repository

Hanif, Muhammad Fainan

2010-01-01

In this paper we consider the problem of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) balancing in the downlink of cognitive radio (CR) networks while simultaneously keeping interference levels at primary user (PU) receivers (RXs) below an acceptable threshold with uncertain channel state information available at the CR base-station (BS). We optimize the beamforming vectors at the CR BS so that the worst user SINR is maximized and transmit power constraints at the CR BS and interference constraints at the PU RXs are satisfied. With uncertainties in the channel bounded by a Euclidean ball, the semidefinite program (SDP) modeling the balancing problem is solved using the recently developed convex iteration technique without relaxing the rank constraints. Numerical simulations are conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in comparison to known approximations.

Cross Deployment Networking and Systematic Performance Analysis of Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhengxian Wei

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs have become a new hot research area. However, due to the work dynamics and harsh ocean environment, how to obtain an UWSN with the best systematic performance while deploying as few sensor nodes as possible and setting up self-adaptive networking is an urgent problem that needs to be solved. Consequently, sensor deployment, networking, and performance calculation of UWSNs are challenging issues, hence the study in this paper centers on this topic and three relevant methods and models are put forward. Firstly, the normal body-centered cubic lattice to cross body-centered cubic lattice (CBCL has been improved, and a deployment process and topology generation method are built. Then most importantly, a cross deployment networking method (CDNM for UWSNs suitable for the underwater environment is proposed. Furthermore, a systematic quar-performance calculation model (SQPCM is proposed from an integrated perspective, in which the systematic performance of a UWSN includes coverage, connectivity, durability and rapid-reactivity. Besides, measurement models are established based on the relationship between systematic performance and influencing parameters. Finally, the influencing parameters are divided into three types, namely, constraint parameters, device performance and networking parameters. Based on these, a networking parameters adjustment method (NPAM for optimized systematic performance of UWSNs has been presented. The simulation results demonstrate that the approach proposed in this paper is feasible and efficient in networking and performance calculation of UWSNs.

Wireless networked music performance

CERN Document Server

Gabrielli, Leonardo

2016-01-01

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in Networked Music Performance (NMP) and a historical survey of computer music networking. It introduces current technical trends in NMP and technical issues yet to be addressed. It also lists wireless communication protocols and compares these to the requirements of NMP. Practical use cases and advancements are also discussed.

Performance, Digestibility and Nitrogen Balance of West African ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The effect of dietary inclusions of ground tree leaves (Azadirachta indica, Newbouldia laevis and Spondias mombin) on performance, digestibility and nitrogen balance of West African dwarf goats was studied for a ten week period. Twenty four (24) bucks were (10.8±0.6 kg) distributed into four treatments (tree leaves and a ...

Quantifying individual performance in Cricket — A network analysis of batsmen and bowlers

Science.gov (United States)

Mukherjee, Satyam

2014-01-01

Quantifying individual performance in the game of Cricket is critical for team selection in International matches. The number of runs scored by batsmen and wickets taken by bowlers serves as a natural way of quantifying the performance of a cricketer. Traditionally the batsmen and bowlers are rated on their batting or bowling average respectively. However, in a game like Cricket it is always important the manner in which one scores the runs or claims a wicket. Scoring runs against a strong bowling line-up or delivering a brilliant performance against a team with a strong batting line-up deserves more credit. A player’s average is not able to capture this aspect of the game. In this paper we present a refined method to quantify the ‘quality’ of runs scored by a batsman or wickets taken by a bowler. We explore the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to rate the players in a team performance. We generate a directed and weighted network of batsmen-bowlers using the player-vs-player information available for Test cricket and ODI cricket. Additionally we generate a network of batsmen and bowlers based on the dismissal record of batsmen in the history of cricket-Test (1877-2011) and ODI (1971-2011). Our results show that M. Muralitharan is the most successful bowler in the history of Cricket. Our approach could potentially be applied in domestic matches to judge a player’s performance which in turn paves the way for a balanced team selection for International matches.

Twelve weeks of BodyBalance® training improved balance and functional task performance in middle-aged and older adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicholson VP

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Vaughan P Nicholson, Mark R McKean, Brendan J Burkett School of Health and Sport Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of BodyBalance® training on balance, functional task performance, fear of falling, and health-related quality of life in adults aged over 55 years.Participants and methods: A total of 28 healthy, active adults aged 66±5 years completed the randomized controlled trial. Balance, functional task performance, fear of falling, and self-reported quality of life were assessed at baseline and after 12 weeks. Participants either undertook two sessions of BodyBalance per week for 12 weeks (n=15 or continued with their normal activities (n=13.Results: Significant group-by-time interactions were found for the timed up and go (P=0.038, 30-second chair stand (P=0.037, and mediolateral center-of-pressure range in narrow stance with eyes closed (P=0.017. There were no significant effects on fear of falling or self-reported quality of life.Conclusion: Twelve weeks of BodyBalance training is effective at improving certain balance and functional based tasks in healthy older adults. Keywords: postural control, yoga, tai chi, center of pressure, exercise

Effects of winter military training on energy balance, whole-body protein balance, muscle damage, soreness, and physical performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Margolis, Lee M; Murphy, Nancy E; Martini, Svein; Spitz, Marissa G; Thrane, Ingjerd; McGraw, Susan M; Blatny, Janet-Martha; Castellani, John W; Rood, Jennifer C; Young, Andrew J; Montain, Scott J; Gundersen, Yngvar; Pasiakos, Stefan M

2014-12-01

Physiological consequences of winter military operations are not well described. This study examined Norwegian soldiers (n = 21 males) participating in a physically demanding winter training program to evaluate whether short-term military training alters energy and whole-body protein balance, muscle damage, soreness, and performance. Energy expenditure (D2(18)O) and intake were measured daily, and postabsorptive whole-body protein turnover ([(15)N]-glycine), muscle damage, soreness, and performance (vertical jump) were assessed at baseline, following a 4-day, military task training phase (MTT) and after a 3-day, 54-km ski march (SKI). Energy intake (kcal·day(-1)) increased (P balance was lower (P military training provide the basis for future studies to evaluate nutritional strategies that attenuate protein loss and sustain performance during severe energy deficits.

THE IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF KINESIOTAPE® ON BALANCE AND FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE

Science.gov (United States)

Douris, Peter; Fukuroku, Taryn; Kuzniewski, Michael; Dias, Joe; Figueiredo, Patrick

2016-01-01

Background The application of Kinesio Tex® tape (KT) results, in theory, in the improvement of muscle contractibility by supporting weakened muscles. The effect of KT on muscle strength has been investigated by numerous researchers who have theorized that KT facilitates an immediate increase in muscle strength by generating a concentric pull on the fascia. The effect of KT on balance and functional performance has been controversial because of the inconsistencies of tension and direction of pull required during application of KT and whether its use on healthy individuals provides therapeutic benefits. Hypotheses/Purpose The purpose of the present study was to investigate the immediate and long-term effects of the prescribed application (for facilitation) of KT when applied to the dominant lower extremity of healthy individuals. The hypothesis was that balance and functional performance would improve with the prescribed application of KT versus the sham application. Study Design Pretest-posttest repeated measures control group design. Methods Seventeen healthy subjects (9 males; 8 females) ranging from 18-35 years of age (mean age 23.3 ± 0.72), volunteered to participate in this study. KT was applied to the gastrocnemius of the participant's dominant leg using a prescribed application to facilitate muscle performance for the experimental group versus a sham application for the control group. The Biodex Balance System and four hop tests were utilized to assess balance, proprioception, and functional performance beginning on the first day including pre- and immediately post-KT application measurements. Subsequent measurements were performed 24, 72, and 120 hours after tape application. Repeated measures ANOVA's were performed for each individual dependent variable. Results There were no significant differences for main and interaction effects between KT and sham groups for the balance and four hop tests. Conclusion The results of the present study did not

THE IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF KINESIOTAPE® ON BALANCE AND FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Victoria; Douris, Peter; Fukuroku, Taryn; Kuzniewski, Michael; Dias, Joe; Figueiredo, Patrick

2016-04-01

The application of Kinesio Tex® tape (KT) results, in theory, in the improvement of muscle contractibility by supporting weakened muscles. The effect of KT on muscle strength has been investigated by numerous researchers who have theorized that KT facilitates an immediate increase in muscle strength by generating a concentric pull on the fascia. The effect of KT on balance and functional performance has been controversial because of the inconsistencies of tension and direction of pull required during application of KT and whether its use on healthy individuals provides therapeutic benefits. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the immediate and long-term effects of the prescribed application (for facilitation) of KT when applied to the dominant lower extremity of healthy individuals. The hypothesis was that balance and functional performance would improve with the prescribed application of KT versus the sham application. Pretest-posttest repeated measures control group design. Seventeen healthy subjects (9 males; 8 females) ranging from 18-35 years of age (mean age 23.3 ± 0.72), volunteered to participate in this study. KT was applied to the gastrocnemius of the participant's dominant leg using a prescribed application to facilitate muscle performance for the experimental group versus a sham application for the control group. The Biodex Balance System and four hop tests were utilized to assess balance, proprioception, and functional performance beginning on the first day including pre- and immediately post-KT application measurements. Subsequent measurements were performed 24, 72, and 120 hours after tape application. Repeated measures ANOVA's were performed for each individual dependent variable. There were no significant differences for main and interaction effects between KT and sham groups for the balance and four hop tests. The results of the present study did not indicate any significant differences in balance and functional performance

Comparison of Balance Performance Between Thai Classical Dancers and Non-Dancers.

Science.gov (United States)

Krityakiarana, Warin; Jongkamonwiwat, Nopporn

2016-01-01

Thai classical dance is a traditional dramatic art, the technique of which has many features in common with South East Asian performing art. The choreographic patterns consist of various forms of balance control together with limb movements in slow rhythm. The grace and beauty of the dancer are dependent on how well the limb movements curve and angle. The relationship of whole body proportion and balance control in various patterns of support base is also important. The purpose of this study was to compare balance abilities between Thai classical dancers and non-dancers in different balance conditions. Twenty-five Thai classical dancers and 25 non-dancers performed the modified Sensory Organization Test (mSOT) and were further challenged by adding dynamic head tilts (DHTs) in four different directions during mSOT. Mixed model ANOVA was applied to determine the equilibrium score in each balance condition and also the interaction between dancer and non-dancer groups. It was found that Thai classical dancers achieved better equilibrium scores in all mSOT conditions except the least challenging one. Moreover, additional multitask conditions (mSOT+DHT) were revealed to profoundly affect differences between dancers and controls. In conclusion, Thai classical dancers demonstrated a better ability to maintain postural stability during different challenging postural tests. This information suggests various ways of putting the practice of Thai classical dance to use in the future.

Sequencing Effects of Balance and Plyometric Training on Physical Performance in Youth Soccer Athletes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hammami, Raouf; Granacher, Urs; Makhlouf, Issam; Behm, David G; Chaouachi, Anis

2016-12-01

Hammami, R, Granacher, U, Makhlouf, I, Behm, DG, and Chaouachi, A. Sequencing effects of balance and plyometric training on physical performance in youth soccer athletes. J Strength Cond Res 30(12): 3278-3289, 2016-Balance training may have a preconditioning effect on subsequent power training with youth. There are no studies examining whether the sequencing of balance and plyometric training has additional training benefits. The objective was to examine the effect of sequencing balance and plyometric training on the performance of 12- to 13-year-old athletes. Twenty-four young elite soccer players trained twice per week for 8 weeks either with an initial 4 weeks of balance training followed by 4 weeks of plyometric training (BPT) or 4 weeks of plyometric training proceeded by 4 weeks of balance training (PBT). Testing was conducted pre- and posttraining and included medicine ball throw; horizontal and vertical jumps; reactive strength; leg stiffness; agility; 10-, 20-, and 30-m sprints; Standing Stork balance test; and Y-Balance test. Results indicated that BPT provided significantly greater improvements with reactive strength index, absolute and relative leg stiffness, triple hop test, and a trend for the Y-Balance test (p = 0.054) compared with PBT. Although all other measures had similar changes for both groups, the average relative improvement for the BPT was 22.4% (d = 1.5) vs. 15.0% (d = 1.1) for the PBT. BPT effect sizes were greater with 8 of 13 measures. In conclusion, although either sequence of BPT or PBT improved jumping, hopping, sprint acceleration, and Standing Stork and Y-Balance, BPT initiated greater training improvements in reactive strength index, absolute and relative leg stiffness, triple hop test, and the Y-Balance test. BPT may provide either similar or superior performance enhancements compared with PBT.

Current Account Balance and Export Performances: Evidence Based on New EU Countries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bogdan Željko

2017-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we investigate whether the differences in the current account balance and export performances for a new EU countries are a result of exchange rate policies. The analysis shows that countries with a flexible exchange rate have better export performances and the current account balance in the pre-crisis period. The obtained results show that movements in the current account balance are mainly driven by domestic variables. In the countries with a flexible exchange rate, real and nominal depreciation affects export positively although the magnitude of these effects is tiny and limited to the crisis period. These results point to a higher significance of non-price competitiveness on export which should be a future research topic.

On balancing between minimum energy and minimum delay with radio diversity for wireless sensor networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moad, Sofiane; Hansen, Morten Tranberg; Jurdak, RajA

2012-01-01

The expected number of transmissions (ETX) metric represents the link quality in wireless sensor networks, which is highly variable for a specific radio and it can influence dramatically both of the delay and the energy. To adapt to these fluctuations, radio diversity has been recently introduced...... to improve the delivery rate but at the cost of increases in energy for wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a scheme for radio diversity that can balance, depending on the traffic nature in the network, between minimizing the energy consumption or minimizing the end-to-end delay. The proposed...... scheme combines the benefit of two metrics, which aim separately to minimize the energy consumption, and to minimize delay when delivering packets to the end-user. We show by both analysis and simulation that our proposed scheme can adapt to the type of traffic that can occur in a network so...

Performance Evaluation Of Mobile Cellular Networks In Nigeria

OpenAIRE

Shoewu, O.O

2018-01-01

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of mobile networks such as MTN, GLO, and ETISALAT in Nigeria and suggest ways the performance of digital cellular networks can improve to minimize some of its present short comings or limitations. This paper discusses the performance improvement of digital cellular networks. A non- CDMA cellular network is use in an overall wireless environment for the purpose of this paper. This paper also discusses the performance assessment of three mobi...

CAC DPLB MCN: A Distributed Load Balancing Scheme in Multimedia Mobile Cellular Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sharma Abhijit

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The problem of non-uniform traffic demand in different cells of a cellular network may lead to a gross imbalance in the system performance. Thus, the users in hot cells may suffer from low throughput. In this paper, an effective and simple load balancing scheme CAC_DPLB_MCN is proposed that can effectively reduce the overall call blocking. This model considers dealing with multi-media traffic as well as time-varying geographical traffic distribution. The proposed scheme uses the concept of cell-tiering thereby creating fractional frequency reuse environment. A message exchange based distributed scheme instead of centralized one is used which help the proposed scheme be implemented in a multiple hot cell environment also. Furthermore, concept of dynamic pricing is used to serve the best interest of the users as well as for the service providers. The performance of the proposed scheme is compared with two other existing schemes in terms of call blocking probability and bandwidth utilization. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can reduce the call blocking significantly in highly congested cell with highest bandwidth utilization. Use of dynamic pricing also makes the scheme useful to increase revenue of the service providers in contrast with compared schemes.

Representativeness of regional and global mass-balance measurement networks (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Cogley, J. G.; Moholdt, G.; Gardner, A. S.

2013-12-01

We showed in a recent publication that regional estimates of glacier mass budgets, obtained by interpolation from in-situ measurements, were markedly more negative than corresponding estimates by satellite gravimetry (GRACE) and satellite altimetry (ICESat) during 2003-2009. Examining the ICESat data in more detail, we found that in-situ records tend to be located in areas where glaciers are thinning more rapidly than as observed in their regional surroundings. Because neither GRACE nor ICESat can provide information for times before 2002-2003, and may not operate without interruption in the future, we explore possible explanations of and remedies for the identified bias in the in-situ network. Sparse spatial sampling, coupled with previously undetected spatial variability of mass balance at scales between the 10-km in-situ scale and the 350-km gravimetric scale, appears to be the leading explanation. Satisfactory remedies are not obvious. Selecting glaciers for in-situ measurement that are more representative will yield only incremental improvements. There appears to be no alternative to mass-balance modelling as a versatile tool for estimation of regional mass balance. However the meteorological data for forcing the surface components of glacier models have coarser resolution than is desirable and are themselves uncertain, especially in the remote regions where much of the glacier ice is found. Measurements of frontal (dynamic) mass changes are still difficult, and modelling of these changes remains underdeveloped in spite of recent advances. Thus research on a broad scale is called for in order to meet the challenge of producing more accurate hindcasts and projections of glacier mass budgets with fine spatial and temporal resolution.

Multidimensional Balanced Efficiency Decision Model

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Antonella Petrillo

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper a multicriteria methodological approach, based on Balanced Scorecard (BSC and Analytic Network Process (ANP, is proposed to evaluate competitiveness performance in luxury sector. A set of specific key performance indicators (KPIs have been proposed. The contribution of our paper is to present the integration of two methodologies, BSC – a multiple perspective framework for performance assessment – and ANP – a decision-making tool to prioritize multiple performance perspectives and indicators and to generate a unified metric that incorporates diversified issues for conducting supply chain improvements. The BSC/ANP model is used to prioritize all performances within a luxury industry. A real case study is presented.

Complex networks-based energy-efficient evolution model for wireless sensor networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhu Hailin [Beijing Key Laboratory of Intelligent Telecommunications Software and Multimedia, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.O. Box 106, Beijing 100876 (China)], E-mail: zhuhailin19@gmail.com; Luo Hong [Beijing Key Laboratory of Intelligent Telecommunications Software and Multimedia, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.O. Box 106, Beijing 100876 (China); Peng Haipeng; Li Lixiang; Luo Qun [Information Secure Center, State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.O. Box 145, Beijing 100876 (China)

2009-08-30

Based on complex networks theory, we present two self-organized energy-efficient models for wireless sensor networks in this paper. The first model constructs the wireless sensor networks according to the connectivity and remaining energy of each sensor node, thus it can produce scale-free networks which have a performance of random error tolerance. In the second model, we not only consider the remaining energy, but also introduce the constraint of links to each node. This model can make the energy consumption of the whole network more balanced. Finally, we present the numerical experiments of the two models.

Complex networks-based energy-efficient evolution model for wireless sensor networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu Hailin; Luo Hong; Peng Haipeng; Li Lixiang; Luo Qun

2009-01-01

Based on complex networks theory, we present two self-organized energy-efficient models for wireless sensor networks in this paper. The first model constructs the wireless sensor networks according to the connectivity and remaining energy of each sensor node, thus it can produce scale-free networks which have a performance of random error tolerance. In the second model, we not only consider the remaining energy, but also introduce the constraint of links to each node. This model can make the energy consumption of the whole network more balanced. Finally, we present the numerical experiments of the two models.

Accounting for future redesign to balance performance and development costs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Villanueva, D.; Haftka, R.T.; Sankar, B.V.

2014-01-01

Most components undergo tests after they are designed and are redesigned if necessary. Tests help designers find unsafe and overly conservative designs, and redesign can restore safety or increase performance. In general, the expected changes to the performance and reliability of the design after the test and redesign are not considered. In this paper, we explore how modeling a future test and redesign provides a company an opportunity to balance development costs versus performance by simultaneously designing the design and the post-test redesign rules during the initial design stage. Due to regulations and tradition, safety margin and safety factor based design is a common practice in industry as opposed to probabilistic design. In this paper, we show that it is possible to continue to use safety margin based design, and employ probability solely to select safety margins and redesign criteria. In this study, we find the optimum safety margins and redesign criterion for an integrated thermal protection system. These are optimized in order to find a minimum mass design with minimal redesign costs. We observed that the optimum safety margin and redesign criterion call for an initially conservative design and use the redesign process to trim excess weight rather than restore safety. This would fit well with regulatory constraints, since regulations usually impose minimum safety margins. - Highlights: • Modeling future tests and redesign allows balancing performance and development cost. • We optimize safety margins and redesign criteria for desired balance. • We design with safety margins, with probabilistic optimization to decide the margins. • Redesign also allowed the trade-off of conservativeness and performance. • In our case it paid to be conservative initially but redesign for more

Evaluating the Fraser Health Balanced Scorecard--a formative evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Barnardo, Catherine; Jivanni, Amin

2009-01-01

Fraser Health (FH), a large, Canadian, integrated health care network, adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) approach to monitor organizational performance in 2006. This paper reports on the results of a formative evaluation, conducted in April, 2008, to assess the usefulness of the BSC as a performance-reporting system and a performance management tool. Results indicated that the BSC has proven to be useful for reporting performance but is not currently used for performance management in a substantial way.

Relevance of nerve conduction velocity in the assessment of balance performance in older adults with diabetes mellitus.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Ting-Yun; Chen, Shih-Ching; Peng, Chih-Wei; Kang, Chun-Wei; Chen, Yu-Luen; Chen, Chun-Lung; Chou, Yi-Lin; Lai, Chien-Hung

2017-03-01

Purpose This study investigated the relationship between peripheral nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and balance performance in older adults with diabetes. Methods Twenty older adults with diabetes were recruited to evaluate the NCV of their lower limbs and balance performance. The balance assessments comprised the timed up and go (TUG) test, Berg balance scale (BBS), unipedal stance test (UST), multidirectional reach test (MDRT), maximum step length (MSL) test and quiet standing with eyes open and closed. The relationship between NCV and balance performance was evaluated by Pearson's correlation coefficients, and the balance performances of the diabetic patients with and without peripheral neuropathy were compared by using Mann-Whitney U tests. Results The NCV in the lower limbs exhibited a moderate to strong correlation with most of the balance tests including the TUG (r = -0.435 to -0.520, p tests, which are commonly used in clinics. Decline in nerve conduction velocity of the lower limbs may be related to the impairment of balance control in patients with diabetes. Diabetic older adults with peripheral neuropathy exhibited greater postural instability than those without peripheral neuropathy.

Quantitative performance targets by using balanced scorecard system: application to waste management and public administration.

Science.gov (United States)

Mendes, Paula; Nunes, Luis Miguel; Teixeira, Margarida Ribau

2014-09-01

This article demonstrates how decision-makers can be guided in the process of defining performance target values in the balanced scorecard system. We apply a method based on sensitivity analysis with Monte Carlo simulation to the municipal solid waste management system in Loulé Municipality (Portugal). The method includes two steps: sensitivity analysis of performance indicators to identify those performance indicators with the highest impact on the balanced scorecard model outcomes; and sensitivity analysis of the target values for the previously identified performance indicators. Sensitivity analysis shows that four strategic objectives (IPP1: Comply with the national waste strategy; IPP4: Reduce nonrenewable resources and greenhouse gases; IPP5: Optimize the life-cycle of waste; and FP1: Meet and optimize the budget) alone contribute 99.7% of the variability in overall balanced scorecard value. Thus, these strategic objectives had a much stronger impact on the estimated balanced scorecard outcome than did others, with the IPP1 and the IPP4 accounting for over 55% and 22% of the variance in overall balanced scorecard value, respectively. The remaining performance indicators contribute only marginally. In addition, a change in the value of a single indicator's target value made the overall balanced scorecard value change by as much as 18%. This may lead to involuntarily biased decisions by organizations regarding performance target-setting, if not prevented with the help of methods such as that proposed and applied in this study. © The Author(s) 2014.

Evaluation of Communication Network State Estimators for Adaptive Power-Balancing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Findrik, Mislav; Pedersen, Rasmus; Sloth, Christoffer

2017-01-01

Smart Grid applications are going to reach the LV grid assets and households in order to efficiently use the resources in distribution grids. A cost effective way to connect these devices is to utilize the existing network infrastructure or to utilize Power-Line Com- munication (PLC). In this work...... we have show how PLC communication can have significant impairments for load-frequency control operations in the microgrid. Moreover, we have demonstrate how such poor network performance can influence the control performance on a case study of the low voltage grid controller. Further- more, we have...

Can balance trampoline training promote motor coordination and balance performance in children with developmental coordination disorder?

Science.gov (United States)

Giagazoglou, Paraskevi; Sidiropoulou, Maria; Mitsiou, Maria; Arabatzi, Fotini; Kellis, Eleftherios

2015-01-01

The present study aimed to examine movement difficulties among typically developing 8- to 9-year-old elementary students in Greece and to investigate the possible effects of a balance training program to those children assessed with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The Body Coordination Test for Children (BCTC; Körperkoordinationstest fur Kinder, KTK, Kiphard & Schilling, 1974) was chosen for the purposes of this study and 20 children out of the total number of 200, exhibited motor difficulties indicating a probable DCD disorder. The 20 students diagnosed with DCD were equally separated into two groups where each individual of the experimental group was paired with an individual of the control group. The intervention group attended a 12-week balance training program while students of the second - control group followed the regular school schedule. All participants were tested prior to the start and after the end of the 12-week period by performing static balance control tasks while standing on an EPS pressure platform and structured observation of trampoline exercises while videotaping. The results indicated that after a 12-week balance training circuit including a trampoline station program, the intervention group improved both factors that were examined. In conclusion, balance training with the use of attractive equipment such as trampoline can be an effective intervention for improving functional outcomes and can be recommended as an alternative mode of physical activity. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Capturing the essence of a metabolic network: a flux balance analysis approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Murabito, Ettore; Simeonidis, Evangelos; Smallbone, Kieran; Swinton, Jonathan

2009-10-07

As genome-scale metabolic reconstructions emerge, tools to manage their size and complexity will be increasingly important. Flux balance analysis (FBA) is a constraint-based approach widely used to study the metabolic capabilities of cellular or subcellular systems. FBA problems are highly underdetermined and many different phenotypes can satisfy any set of constraints through which the metabolic system is represented. Two of the main concerns in FBA are exploring the space of solutions for a given metabolic network and finding a specific phenotype which is representative for a given task such as maximal growth rate. Here, we introduce a recursive algorithm suitable for overcoming both of these concerns. The method proposed is able to find the alternate optimal patterns of active reactions of an FBA problem and identify the minimal subnetwork able to perform a specific task as optimally as the whole. Our method represents an alternative to and an extension of other approaches conceived for exploring the space of solutions of an FBA problem. It may also be particularly helpful in defining a scaffold of reactions upon which to build up a dynamic model, when the important pathways of the system have not yet been well-defined.

Model of load balancing using reliable algorithm with multi-agent system

Science.gov (United States)

Afriansyah, M. F.; Somantri, M.; Riyadi, M. A.

2017-04-01

Massive technology development is linear with the growth of internet users which increase network traffic activity. It also increases load of the system. The usage of reliable algorithm and mobile agent in distributed load balancing is a viable solution to handle the load issue on a large-scale system. Mobile agent works to collect resource information and can migrate according to given task. We propose reliable load balancing algorithm using least time first byte (LFB) combined with information from the mobile agent. In system overview, the methodology consisted of defining identification system, specification requirements, network topology and design system infrastructure. The simulation method for simulated system was using 1800 request for 10 s from the user to the server and taking the data for analysis. Software simulation was based on Apache Jmeter by observing response time and reliability of each server and then compared it with existing method. Results of performed simulation show that the LFB method with mobile agent can perform load balancing with efficient systems to all backend server without bottleneck, low risk of server overload, and reliable.

On delay adjustment for dynamic load balancing in distributed virtual environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Yunhua; Lau, Rynson W H

2012-04-01

Distributed virtual environments (DVEs) are becoming very popular in recent years, due to the rapid growing of applications, such as massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs). As the number of concurrent users increases, scalability becomes one of the major challenges in designing an interactive DVE system. One solution to address this scalability problem is to adopt a multi-server architecture. While some methods focus on the quality of partitioning the load among the servers, others focus on the efficiency of the partitioning process itself. However, all these methods neglect the effect of network delay among the servers on the accuracy of the load balancing solutions. As we show in this paper, the change in the load of the servers due to network delay would affect the performance of the load balancing algorithm. In this work, we conduct a formal analysis of this problem and discuss two efficient delay adjustment schemes to address the problem. Our experimental results show that our proposed schemes can significantly improve the performance of the load balancing algorithm with neglectable computation overhead.

Balanced performance measurement in research hospitals: the participative case study of a haematology department.

Science.gov (United States)

Catuogno, Simona; Arena, Claudia; Saggese, Sara; Sarto, Fabrizia

2017-08-03

The paper aims to review, design and implement a multidimensional performance measurement system for a public research hospital in order to address the complexity of its multifaceted stakeholder requirements and its double institutional aim of care and research. The methodology relies on a participative case study performed by external researchers in close collaboration with the staff of an Italian research hospital. The paper develops and applies a customized version of balanced scorecard based on a new set of performance measures. Our findings suggest that it can be considered an effective framework for measuring the research hospital performance, thanks to a combination of generalizable and context-specific factors. By showing how the balanced scorecard framework can be customized to research hospitals, the paper is especially of interest for complex healthcare organizations that are implementing management accounting practices. The paper contributes to the body of literature on the application of the balanced scorecard in healthcare through an examination of the challenges in designing and implementing this multidimensional performance tool. This is one of the first papers that show how the balanced scorecard model can be adapted to fit the specific requirements of public research hospitals.

Variations in task constraints shape emergent performance outcomes and complexity levels in balancing.

Science.gov (United States)

Caballero Sánchez, Carla; Barbado Murillo, David; Davids, Keith; Moreno Hernández, Francisco J

2016-06-01

This study investigated the extent to which specific interacting constraints of performance might increase or decrease the emergent complexity in a movement system, and whether this could affect the relationship between observed movement variability and the central nervous system's capacity to adapt to perturbations during balancing. Fifty-two healthy volunteers performed eight trials where different performance constraints were manipulated: task difficulty (three levels) and visual biofeedback conditions (with and without the center of pressure (COP) displacement and a target displayed). Balance performance was assessed using COP-based measures: mean velocity magnitude (MVM) and bivariate variable error (BVE). To assess the complexity of COP, fuzzy entropy (FE) and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) were computed. ANOVAs showed that MVM and BVE increased when task difficulty increased. During biofeedback conditions, individuals showed higher MVM but lower BVE at the easiest level of task difficulty. Overall, higher FE and lower DFA values were observed when biofeedback was available. On the other hand, FE reduced and DFA increased as difficulty level increased, in the presence of biofeedback. However, when biofeedback was not available, the opposite trend in FE and DFA values was observed. Regardless of changes to task constraints and the variable investigated, balance performance was positively related to complexity in every condition. Data revealed how specificity of task constraints can result in an increase or decrease in complexity emerging in a neurobiological system during balance performance.

The Impact of a Submaximal Level of Exercise on Balance Performance in Older Persons

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hani Asilah Alias

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a submaximal level of exercise on balance performance under a variety of conditions. Material and Method. Thirteen community-dwelling older persons with intact foot sensation (age = 66.69 ± 8.17 years, BMI = 24.65 ± 4.08 kg/m2, female, n=6 volunteered to participate. Subjects’ balance performances were measured using the Modified Clinical Test of Sensory Integration of Balance (mCTSIB at baseline and after test, under four conditions of stance: (1 eyes-opened firm-surface (EOF, (2 eyes-closed firm-surface (ECF, (3 eyes-opened soft-surface (EOS, and (4 eyes-closed soft-surface (ECS. The 6-minute walk test (6MWT protocol was used to induce the submaximal level of exercise. Data was analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. Results. Balance changes during EOF (z=0.00, P=1.00 and ECF (z=-1.342, P=0.180 were not significant. However, balance changes during EOS (z=-2.314, P=0.021 and ECS (z=-3.089, P=0.02 were significantly dropped after the 6MWT. Conclusion. A submaximal level of exercise may influence sensory integration that in turn affects balance performance, particularly on an unstable surface. Rehabilitation should focus on designing intervention that may improve sensory integration among older individuals with balance deterioration in order to encourage functional activities.

Effect of Wii-intervention on balance of children with poor motor performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Mombarg, Remo; Jelsma, Dorothee; Hartman, Esther

2013-09-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of training with the Wii-balance board on balance and balance-related skills of children with poor motor performance. Twenty-nine children (23 boys, 6 girls; aged 7-12 years) participated in this study and were randomly assigned to an experimental and control group. All children scored below the 16th percentile on a standardized test of motor ability and balance skills (Movement Assessment Battery for children (M-ABC-2)). Before and after a six-week Wii-intervention (M=8h, 22 min, SD=53 min), the balance skills of the experimental group and control group were measured with the M-ABC-2 and the Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency (BOT-2). Both groups improved on all tests. The M-ABC-2 and the BOT-2 total balance-scores of the experimental group improved significantly from pre to post intervention, whereas those of the control group showed no significant progress. This resulted in significant interaction-effects, favoring the experimental children. No transfer-effects of the intervention on balance-related skills were demonstrated. Our findings showed that the Wii-balance board is an effective intervention for children with poor balance control. Further development and investigation of the intervention could be directed toward the implementation of the newly acquired balance-skills in daily life. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Network performance for graphical control systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clout, P.; Geib, M.; Westervelt, R.

1992-01-01

Vsystem is a toolbox for building graphically-based control systems. The real-tiem database component, Vaccess, includes all the networking support necessary to build multi-computer control systems. Vaccess has two modes of database access, synchronous and asynchronous. Vdraw is another component of Vsystem that allows developers and users to develop control screens and windows by drawing rather than programming. Based on X-windows, Vsystem provides the possibility of running Vdraw either on the workstation with the graphics or on the computer with the database. We have made some measurements on the cpu loading, elapsed time and the network loading to give some guidance in system configuration performance. It will be seen that asynchronous network access gives large performance increases and that the network database change notification protocol can be either more or less efficient than the X-window network protocol, depending on the graphical representation of the data. (author)

A new balance-of-plant model for the SASSYS-1 LMR systems analysis code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Briggs, L.L.

1991-01-01

In this paper, a balance-of-plant model is developed for the SASSYS code. This model represents the balance of plant as a network of components. It interfaces with the existing SASSYS code through the water side of the steam generator. The network representation provides a discretization of the mass, momentum, and energy equations and the equation of state and allows a simultaneous solution for the changes in pressure, flow, and enthalpy throughout the waterside system. The model has been tested for several types of transients and been found to perform both accurately and efficiently

Virtual Networking Performance in OpenStack Platform for Network Function Virtualization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Franco Callegati

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The emerging Network Function Virtualization (NFV paradigm, coupled with the highly flexible and programmatic control of network devices offered by Software Defined Networking solutions, enables unprecedented levels of network virtualization that will definitely change the shape of future network architectures, where legacy telco central offices will be replaced by cloud data centers located at the edge. On the one hand, this software-centric evolution of telecommunications will allow network operators to take advantage of the increased flexibility and reduced deployment costs typical of cloud computing. On the other hand, it will pose a number of challenges in terms of virtual network performance and customer isolation. This paper intends to provide some insights on how an open-source cloud computing platform such as OpenStack implements multitenant network virtualization and how it can be used to deploy NFV, focusing in particular on packet forwarding performance issues. To this purpose, a set of experiments is presented that refer to a number of scenarios inspired by the cloud computing and NFV paradigms, considering both single tenant and multitenant scenarios. From the results of the evaluation it is possible to highlight potentials and limitations of running NFV on OpenStack.

Balance, Sensorimotor, and Cognitive Performance in Long-Year Expert Senior Ballroom Dancers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan-Christoph Kattenstroth

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Physical fitness is considered a major factor contributing to the maintenance of independent living and everyday competence. In line with this notion, it has been shown that several years of amateur dancing experience can exert beneficial effects not only on balance and posture but also on tactile, motor, and cognitive functions in older people. This raises the question of whether an even more extensive schedule of dancing, including competitive tournaments, would further enhance these positive effects. We therefore assessed posture, balance, and reaction times, as well as motor, tactile, and cognitive performance in older expert ballroom dancers with several years of competitive experience. We found substantially better performance in the expert group than in the controls in terms of expertise-related domains like posture, balance, and reaction times. However, there was no generalization of positive effects to those domains that were found to be improved in amateur dancers, such as tactile and cognitive performance, suggesting that there might be an optimal range of intervention intensity to maintain health and independence throughout the human lifespan.

Relationship between functional vision and balance and mobility performance in community-dwelling older adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Aartolahti, Eeva; Häkkinen, Arja; Lönnroos, Eija; Kautiainen, Hannu; Sulkava, Raimo; Hartikainen, Sirpa

2013-10-01

Vision is an important prerequisite for balance control and mobility. The role of objectively measured visual functions has been previously studied but less is known about associations of functional vision, that refers to self-perceived vision-based ability to perform daily activities. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between functional vision and balance and mobility performance in a community-based sample of older adults. This study is part of a Geriatric Multidisciplinary Strategy for the Good Care of the Elderly project (GeMS). Participants (576) aged 76-100 years (mean age 81 years, 70 % women) were interviewed using a seven-item functional vision questionnaire (VF-7). Balance and mobility were measured by the Berg balance scale (BBS), timed up and go (TUG), chair stand test, and maximal walking speed. In addition, self-reported fear of falling, depressive symptoms (15-item Geriatric Depression Scale), cognition (Mini-Mental State Examination) and physical activity (Grimby) were assessed. In the analysis, participants were classified into poor, moderate, or good functional vision groups. The poor functional vision group (n = 95) had more comorbidities, depressed mood, cognition decline, fear of falling, and reduced physical activity compared to participants with moderate (n = 222) or good functional vision (n = 259). Participants with poor functional vision performed worse on all balance and mobility tests. After adjusting for gender, age, chronic conditions, and cognition, the linearity remained statistically significant between functional vision and BBS (p = 0.013), TUG (p = 0.010), and maximal walking speed (p = 0.008), but not between functional vision and chair stand (p = 0.069). Poor functional vision is related to weaker balance and mobility performance in community-dwelling older adults. This highlights the importance of widespread assessment of health, including functional vision, to prevent balance impairment and maintain

Topology influences performance in the associative memory neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu Jianquan; He Juan; Cao Jinde; Gao Zhiqiang

2006-01-01

To explore how topology affects performance within Hopfield-type associative memory neural networks (AMNNs), we studied the computational performance of the neural networks with regular lattice, random, small-world, and scale-free structures. In this Letter, we found that the memory performance of neural networks obtained through asynchronous updating from 'larger' nodes to 'smaller' nodes are better than asynchronous updating in random order, especially for the scale-free topology. The computational performance of associative memory neural networks linked by the above-mentioned network topologies with the same amounts of nodes (neurons) and edges (synapses) were studied respectively. Along with topologies becoming more random and less locally disordered, we will see that the performance of associative memory neural network is quite improved. By comparing, we show that the regular lattice and random network form two extremes in terms of patterns stability and retrievability. For a network, its patterns stability and retrievability can be largely enhanced by adding a random component or some shortcuts to its structured component. According to the conclusions of this Letter, we can design the associative memory neural networks with high performance and minimal interconnect requirements

The effect of balance holes to centrifugal pump performance

Science.gov (United States)

Babayigit, O.; Ozgoren, M.; Aksoy, M. H.; Kocaaslan, O.

2017-07-01

The aim of this study is to analyze of a centrifugal pump with and without balance holes by using ANSYS-Fluent software. The pump used in the study is a commercial centrifugal pump consisting of two stages that is a model of Sempa Pump Company. Firstly, models of impeller, diffuser, suction and discharge sections of the centrifugal pump were separately drawn using Ansys and Solidworks software. Later, grid structures were generated on the flow volume of the pump. Turbulent flow volume was numerically solved by realizable k-є turbulence model. The flow analyses were focused on the centrifugal pump performance and the flow characteristics under different operational conditions with/without balance holes. Distributions of flow characteristics such as velocity and pressure distributions in the flow volume were also determined, numerically. The results of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with/without balance holes for the pump head and hydraulic efficiency on the design flow rate of 80 m3/h were found to be 81.5/91.3 m and 51.9/65.3%, respectively.

Balanced microwave filters

CERN Document Server

Hong, Jiasheng; Medina, Francisco; Martiacuten, Ferran

2018-01-01

This book presents and discusses strategies for the design and implementation of common-mode suppressed balanced microwave filters, including, narrowband, wideband, and ultra-wideband filters This book examines differential-mode, or balanced, microwave filters by discussing several implementations of practical realizations of these passive components. Topics covered include selective mode suppression, designs based on distributed and semi-lumped approaches, multilayer technologies, defect ground structures, coupled resonators, metamaterials, interference techniques, and substrate integrated waveguides, among others. Divided into five parts, Balanced Microwave Filters begins with an introduction that presents the fundamentals of balanced lines, circuits, and networks. Part 2 covers balanced transmission lines with common-mode noise suppression, including several types of common-mode filters and the application of such filters to enhance common-mode suppression in balanced bandpass filters. Next, Part 3 exa...

Diversity Performance Analysis on Multiple HAP Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Feihong; Li, Min; Gong, Xiangwu; Li, Hongjun; Gao, Fengyue

2015-01-01

One of the main design challenges in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is achieving a high-data-rate transmission for individual sensor devices. The high altitude platform (HAP) is an important communication relay platform for WSNs and next-generation wireless networks. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques provide the diversity and multiplexing gain, which can improve the network performance effectively. In this paper, a virtual MIMO (V-MIMO) model is proposed by networking multiple HAPs with the concept of multiple assets in view (MAV). In a shadowed Rician fading channel, the diversity performance is investigated. The probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are derived. In addition, the average symbol error rate (ASER) with BPSK and QPSK is given for the V-MIMO model. The system capacity is studied for both perfect channel state information (CSI) and unknown CSI individually. The ergodic capacity with various SNR and Rician factors for different network configurations is also analyzed. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the performance analysis. It is shown that the performance of the HAPs network in WSNs can be significantly improved by utilizing the MAV to achieve overlapping coverage, with the help of the V-MIMO techniques. PMID:26134102

Diversity Performance Analysis on Multiple HAP Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feihong Dong

2015-06-01

Full Text Available One of the main design challenges in wireless sensor networks (WSNs is achieving a high-data-rate transmission for individual sensor devices. The high altitude platform (HAP is an important communication relay platform for WSNs and next-generation wireless networks. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO techniques provide the diversity and multiplexing gain, which can improve the network performance effectively. In this paper, a virtual MIMO (V-MIMO model is proposed by networking multiple HAPs with the concept of multiple assets in view (MAV. In a shadowed Rician fading channel, the diversity performance is investigated. The probability density function (PDF and cumulative distribution function (CDF of the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR are derived. In addition, the average symbol error rate (ASER with BPSK and QPSK is given for the V-MIMO model. The system capacity is studied for both perfect channel state information (CSI and unknown CSI individually. The ergodic capacity with various SNR and Rician factors for different network configurations is also analyzed. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the performance analysis. It is shown that the performance of the HAPs network in WSNs can be significantly improved by utilizing the MAV to achieve overlapping coverage, with the help of the V-MIMO techniques.

Performance Evaluation of Balanced Pension Plans

NARCIS (Netherlands)

L. Andreu (Laura); L.A.P. Swinkels (Laurens)

2009-01-01

textabstractThis paper examines the ability of balanced pension plan managers to successfully time the equity and bond market and select the appropriate assets within these markets. In order to evaluate both market timing abilities in these balanced pension plans, we extend the traditional equity

Performance, Process, and Costs: Managing Service Quality with the Balanced Scorecard.

Science.gov (United States)

Poll, Roswitha

2001-01-01

Describes a cooperative project among three German libraries that used the Balanced Scorecard as a concept for an integrated quality management system. Considers performance indicators across four perspectives that will help academic libraries establish an integrated controlling system and to collect and evaluate performance as well as cost data…

A Cross-Layer Optimization Approach for Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks: Coalition-Aided Data Aggregation, Cooperative Communication, and Energy Balancing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qinghai Gao

2007-01-01

Full Text Available We take a cross-layer optimization approach to study energy efficient data transport in coalition-based wireless sensor networks, where neighboring nodes are organized into groups to form coalitions and sensor nodes within one coalition carry out cooperative communications. In particular, we investigate two network models: (1 many-to-one sensor networks where data from one coalition are transmitted to the sink directly, and (2 multihop sensor networks where data are transported by intermediate nodes to reach the sink. For the many-to-one network model, we propose three schemes for data transmission from a coalition to the sink. In scheme 1, one node in the coalition is selected randomly to transmit the data; in scheme 2, the node with the best channel condition in the coalition transmits the data; and in scheme 3, all the nodes in the coalition transmit in a cooperative manner. Next, we investigate energy balancing with cooperative data transport in multihop sensor networks. Built on the above coalition-aided data transmission schemes, the optimal coalition planning is then carried out in multihop networks, in the sense that unequal coalition sizes are applied to minimize the difference of energy consumption among sensor nodes. Numerical analysis reveals that energy efficiency can be improved significantly by the coalition-aided transmission schemes, and that energy balancing across the sensor nodes can be achieved with the proposed coalition structures.

Building and measuring a high performance network architecture

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kramer, William T.C.; Toole, Timothy; Fisher, Chuck; Dugan, Jon; Wheeler, David; Wing, William R; Nickless, William; Goddard, Gregory; Corbato, Steven; Love, E. Paul; Daspit, Paul; Edwards, Hal; Mercer, Linden; Koester, David; Decina, Basil; Dart, Eli; Paul Reisinger, Paul; Kurihara, Riki; Zekauskas, Matthew J; Plesset, Eric; Wulf, Julie; Luce, Douglas; Rogers, James; Duncan, Rex; Mauth, Jeffery

2001-04-20

Once a year, the SC conferences present a unique opportunity to create and build one of the most complex and highest performance networks in the world. At SC2000, large-scale and complex local and wide area networking connections were demonstrated, including large-scale distributed applications running on different architectures. This project was designed to use the unique opportunity presented at SC2000 to create a testbed network environment and then use that network to demonstrate and evaluate high performance computational and communication applications. This testbed was designed to incorporate many interoperable systems and services and was designed for measurement from the very beginning. The end results were key insights into how to use novel, high performance networking technologies and to accumulate measurements that will give insights into the networks of the future.

Toward a dynamic balanced scorecard model for humanitarian relief organizations’ performance management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Anjomshoae, Ali; Hassan, Adnan; Kunz, Nathan; Wong, Kuan Yew; de Leeuw, S.L.J.M.

2017-01-01

Purpose – In recent years, the balanced scorecard (BSC) has received considerable interest among practitioners for managing their organization’s performance. Unfortunately existing BSC frameworks, particularly for humanitarian supply chains, lack causal relationships among performance indicators,

Performance Monitoring Techniques Supporting Cognitive Optical Networking

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Caballero Jambrina, Antonio; Borkowski, Robert; Zibar, Darko

2013-01-01

High degree of heterogeneity of future optical networks, such as services with different quality-of-transmission requirements, modulation formats and switching techniques, will pose a challenge for the control and optimization of different parameters. Incorporation of cognitive techniques can help...... to solve this issue by realizing a network that can observe, act, learn and optimize its performance, taking into account end-to-end goals. In this letter we present the approach of cognition applied to heterogeneous optical networks developed in the framework of the EU project CHRON: Cognitive...... Heterogeneous Reconfigurable Optical Network. We focus on the approaches developed in the project for optical performance monitoring, which enable the feedback from the physical layer to the cognitive decision system by providing accurate description of the performance of the established lightpaths....

Optical Networks Solutions planning - performances - management

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fenger, Christian

2002-01-01

It has been a decisive goal in the compilation of this thesis to make us capable of realizing the future national and regional telecommunication networks in an efficient and resource optimal way. By future telecommunication network is assumed an all optical network where the information in transit...... are kept optical and not converted into the optical domain. The focus is on the scientific results achieved throughout the Ph.D. period. Five subjects – all increasing the understanding of optical networks – are studied. Static wavelength routed optical networks are studied. Management on terms...... of lightpath allocation and design is considered. By using statistical models (simultaneous analysis of many networks) the correspondence between parameters determining the network topology and the performance of the optical network is found. These dependencies are important knowledge in the process...

Optical interconnection networks for high-performance computing systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Biberman, Aleksandr; Bergman, Keren

2012-01-01

Enabled by silicon photonic technology, optical interconnection networks have the potential to be a key disruptive technology in computing and communication industries. The enduring pursuit of performance gains in computing, combined with stringent power constraints, has fostered the ever-growing computational parallelism associated with chip multiprocessors, memory systems, high-performance computing systems and data centers. Sustaining these parallelism growths introduces unique challenges for on- and off-chip communications, shifting the focus toward novel and fundamentally different communication approaches. Chip-scale photonic interconnection networks, enabled by high-performance silicon photonic devices, offer unprecedented bandwidth scalability with reduced power consumption. We demonstrate that the silicon photonic platforms have already produced all the high-performance photonic devices required to realize these types of networks. Through extensive empirical characterization in much of our work, we demonstrate such feasibility of waveguides, modulators, switches and photodetectors. We also demonstrate systems that simultaneously combine many functionalities to achieve more complex building blocks. We propose novel silicon photonic devices, subsystems, network topologies and architectures to enable unprecedented performance of these photonic interconnection networks. Furthermore, the advantages of photonic interconnection networks extend far beyond the chip, offering advanced communication environments for memory systems, high-performance computing systems, and data centers. (review article)

Comparing the effects of balance training with and without cognitive tasks on the quality of life and balance performance in community-dwelling older adults: a single-blind randomized clinical trial

OpenAIRE

Ehsan Sinaei; Fahimeh Kamali; Ahmadreza Nematollahi; Zahra Etminan

2016-01-01

Background: Aging process can deteriorate the ability to maintain balance, specifically under dual-task conditions. Thus far, different methods of exercises therapy have been applied to improve balance performance of older adults. The present study was designed to compare the effects of two protocols of balance training on the quality of life (QoL) and balance performance in older adults with mild balance impairments. Methods: Twenty-four older adults over 60 years old were ...

Experimental performance evaluation of software defined networking (SDN) based data communication networks for large scale flexi-grid optical networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yongli; He, Ruiying; Chen, Haoran; Zhang, Jie; Ji, Yuefeng; Zheng, Haomian; Lin, Yi; Wang, Xinbo

2014-04-21

Software defined networking (SDN) has become the focus in the current information and communication technology area because of its flexibility and programmability. It has been introduced into various network scenarios, such as datacenter networks, carrier networks, and wireless networks. Optical transport network is also regarded as an important application scenario for SDN, which is adopted as the enabling technology of data communication networks (DCN) instead of general multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS). However, the practical performance of SDN based DCN for large scale optical networks, which is very important for the technology selection in the future optical network deployment, has not been evaluated up to now. In this paper we have built a large scale flexi-grid optical network testbed with 1000 virtual optical transport nodes to evaluate the performance of SDN based DCN, including network scalability, DCN bandwidth limitation, and restoration time. A series of network performance parameters including blocking probability, bandwidth utilization, average lightpath provisioning time, and failure restoration time have been demonstrated under various network environments, such as with different traffic loads and different DCN bandwidths. The demonstration in this work can be taken as a proof for the future network deployment.

Changes in the Balance Performance of Polish Recreational Skiers after Seven Days of Alpine Skiing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wojtyczek Beata

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Alpine skiing is one of the most popular leisure time winter sporting activities. Skiing imposes high requirements concerning physical fitness, particularly regarding balance abilities. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the changes in balance performance of recreational skiers after a seven-day ski camp. A total of 78 students - 24 women and 54 men - participated in the study. The ski course was held in accordance with the official program of the Polish Ski Federation. The study sample was comprised of 43 beginners and 35 intermediate skiers. All students were tested with the MFT S3-Check, the day before and the day after the ski camp. The test system consisted of an unstable uniaxial platform, with an integrated sensor and corresponding software. Changes in balance performance (sensory and stability index were evaluated using paired t-tests. Additionally, changes in sensory and stability categories, which were based on the norm data, were analyzed. Female and male participants showed significantly better sensory and stability indices after skiing. Considerable changes from weak or very weak to average or good balance categories could be seen after skiing for both sexes. Regarding skiing experience, both beginners and intermediate skiers improved their sensory and stability indices significantly after skiing. Hence, recreational alpine skiing resulted in better balance performance regardless of sex or skiing experience. Skiing as an outdoor activity offers the opportunity to improve balance performance with a positive impact on everyday life activities.

On Hybrid Cooperation in Underlay Cognitive Radio Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mahmood, Nurul Huda; Yilmaz, Ferkan; Øien, Geir E.

2013-01-01

of opportunistic wireless systems such as cognitive radio networks. In order to balance the performance gains from cooperative communication against the possible over-utilization of resources, we propose and analyze an adaptive-cooperation technique for underlay cognitive radio networks, termed as hybrid......Cooperative communication is a promising strategy to enhance the performance of a communication network as it helps to improve the coverage area and the outage performance. However, such enhancement comes at the expense of increased resource utilization, which is undesirable; more so in the case......-cooperation. Under the proposed cooperation scheme, secondary users in a cognitive radio network cooperate adaptively to enhance the spectral efficiency and the error performance of the network. The bit error rate, the spectral efficiency and the outage performance of the network under the proposed hybrid...

On hybrid cooperation in underlay cognitive radio networks

KAUST Repository

Mahmood, Nurul Huda

2012-11-01

In wireless systems where transmitters are subject to a strict received power constraint, such as in underlay cognitive radio networks, cooperative communication is a promising strategy to enhance network performance, as it helps to improve the coverage area and outage performance of a network. However, this comes at the expense of increased resource utilization. To balance the performance gain against the possible over-utilization of resources, we propose a hybrid-cooperation technique for underlay cognitive radio networks, where secondary users cooperate only when required. Various performance measures of the proposed hybrid-cooperation technique are analyzed in this paper, and are also further validated numerically. © 2012 IEEE.

Relationship between functional vision and balance and mobility performance in community-dwelling older adults

OpenAIRE

Aartolahti, Eeva; Häkkinen, Arja; Lönnroos, Eija; Kautiainen, Hannu; Sulkava, Raimo; Hartikainen, Sirpa

2013-01-01

Background and Aims: Vision is an important prerequisite for balance control and mobility. The role of objectively measured visual functions has been previously studied but less is known about associations of functional vision. That refers to selfperceived vision-based ability to perform daily activities. The aim was to investigate the relationship between functional vision and balance and mobility performance in a community-based sample of older adults. Methods: This study ...

Performance testing framework for smart grid communication network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Quang, D N; See, O H; Chee, L L; Xuen, C Y; Karuppiah, S

2013-01-01

Smart grid communication network is comprised of different communication mediums and technologies. Performance evaluation is one of the main concerns in smart grid communication system. In any smart grid communication implementation, to determine the performance factor of the network, a testing of an end-to-end process flow is required. Therefore, an effective and coordinated testing procedure plays a crucial role in evaluating the performance of smart grid communications. In this paper, a testing framework is proposed as a guideline to analyze and assess the performance of smart grid communication network.

Academic Performance and the Use of Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jéssica Ribeiro Rangel

2016-08-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate whether the use of social networks influences on the academic performance of students in the undergraduate program in accounting. Data were collected from 322 students of the course of a federal University of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The regression results show that the variables "gender", "motivation" and "classification in the University entrance examination" are significant in explaining students' academic performance measured by the Grade Point Average (GPA. The results show that the performance of male students is lower than that of female students at the level of 5%. Also was identified that the greater the student's motivation level, the greater your academic performance (at the level of 1 percent. Finally, it was observed that the best ranked students in the University entrance examination, the higher their academic performance. However, none of the variables relating to the use of social networks ("familiarity with technological resources", "hours", "Internet hours on social networks" and "use of social networks to study" presented relation with academic performance. In other words, these results show that the use of social networks does not have positive or negative impacts directly on academic performance. We can conclude for the sample analyzed, that use of social networks during the academic period does not influence significantly the performance of the students. However, you can verify that the motivation is directly related to the academic performance of the Accounting student with regard to perception of motivation, to familiarity with technological resources and the use of applications.

Effect of progressive resistance exercise with neuromuscular joint facilitation on the dynamic balance performance of junior soccer players.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hongzhao; Huo, Ming; Guan, Peipei; Onoda, Ko; Chen, Di; Huang, Qiuchen; Maruyama, Hitoshi

2015-11-01

[Purpose] The aim of this study was to investigate the change in dynamic balance performance of junior soccer players after progressive resistance treatment with neuromuscular joint facilitation (NJF). [Subjects] The subjects were 14 healthy males who were divided into two groups, namely the NJF and control groups. The NJF group consisted of 8 subjects, and the control group consisted of 6 subjects. [Methods] The participants in the NJF group received NJF progressive resistance treatment. Dynamic balance performance was measured before and after 3 weeks of exercise. [Results] Significant improvement in dynamic balance performance was observed both in the NJF and control groups. In the NJF group, dynamic balance performance was significantly increased compared with that in the control group. [Conclusion] The NJF intervention shortened movement time, which implies that NJF is effective for dynamic balance performance.

Compression of Video Tracking and Bandwidth Balancing Routing in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yin Wang

2015-12-01

Full Text Available There has been a tremendous growth in multimedia applications over wireless networks. Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks(WMSNs have become the premier choice in many research communities and industry. Many state-of-art applications, such as surveillance, traffic monitoring, and remote heath care are essentially video tracking and transmission in WMSNs. The transmission speed is constrained by the big file size of video data and fixed bandwidth allocation in constant routing paths. In this paper, we present a CamShift based algorithm to compress the tracking of videos. Then we propose a bandwidth balancing strategy in which each sensor node is able to dynamically select the node for the next hop with the highest potential bandwidth capacity to resume communication. Key to this strategy is that each node merely maintains two parameters that contain its historical bandwidth varying trend and then predict its near future bandwidth capacity. Then, the forwarding node selects the next hop with the highest potential bandwidth capacity. Simulations demonstrate that our approach significantly increases the data received by the sink node and decreases the delay on video transmission in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network environments.

Development of balanced key performance indicators for emergency departments strategic dashboards following analytic hierarchical process.

Science.gov (United States)

Safdari, Reza; Ghazisaeedi, Marjan; Mirzaee, Mahboobeh; Farzi, Jebrail; Goodini, Azadeh

2014-01-01

Dynamic reporting tools, such as dashboards, should be developed to measure emergency department (ED) performance. However, choosing an effective balanced set of performance measures and key performance indicators (KPIs) is a main challenge to accomplish this. The aim of this study was to develop a balanced set of KPIs for use in ED strategic dashboards following an analytic hierarchical process. The study was carried out in 2 phases: constructing ED performance measures based on balanced scorecard perspectives and incorporating them into analytic hierarchical process framework to select the final KPIs. The respondents placed most importance on ED internal processes perspective especially on measures related to timeliness and accessibility of care in ED. Some measures from financial, customer, and learning and growth perspectives were also selected as other top KPIs. Measures of care effectiveness and care safety were placed as the next priorities too. The respondents placed least importance on disease-/condition-specific "time to" measures. The methodology can be presented as a reference model for development of KPIs in various performance related areas based on a consistent and fair approach. Dashboards that are designed based on such a balanced set of KPIs will help to establish comprehensive performance measurements and fair benchmarks and comparisons.

Social Networking and Academic Performance: A Review

Science.gov (United States)

Doleck, Tenzin; Lajoie, Susanne

2018-01-01

The ubiquitous use of social networking sites by students and the potential impacts of such use on academic performance are of both theoretical and practical importance. Hence, this paper addresses the question: how does the use of social networking sites influence academic performance? The present review synthesizes the empirical findings of the…

Fear of Falling in Women with Fibromyalgia and Its Relation with Number of Falls and Balance Performance

OpenAIRE

Collado-Mateo, D.; Gallego-Diaz, J. M.; Adsuar, J. C.; Domínguez-Muñoz, F. J.; Olivares, P. R.; Gusi, N.

2015-01-01

Objective. To evaluate fear of falling, number of falls, and balance performance in women with FM and to examine the relationship between these variables and others, such as balance performance, quality of life, age, pain, and impact of fibromyalgia. Methods. A total of 240 women participated in this cross-sectional study. Of these, 125 had fibromyalgia. Several variables were assessed: age, fear of falling from 0 to 100, number of falls, body composition, balance performance, lower limb stre...

Artificial neural network for suppression of banding artifacts in balanced steady-state free precession MRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Ki Hwan; Park, Sung-Hong

2017-04-01

The balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) MR sequence is frequently used in clinics, but is sensitive to off-resonance effects, which can cause banding artifacts. Often multiple bSSFP datasets are acquired at different phase cycling (PC) angles and then combined in a special way for banding artifact suppression. Many strategies of combining the datasets have been suggested for banding artifact suppression, but there are still limitations in their performance, especially when the number of phase-cycled bSSFP datasets is small. The purpose of this study is to develop a learning-based model to combine the multiple phase-cycled bSSFP datasets for better banding artifact suppression. Multilayer perceptron (MLP) is a feedforward artificial neural network consisting of three layers of input, hidden, and output layers. MLP models were trained by input bSSFP datasets acquired from human brain and knee at 3T, which were separately performed for two and four PC angles. Banding-free bSSFP images were generated by maximum-intensity projection (MIP) of 8 or 12 phase-cycled datasets and were used as targets for training the output layer. The trained MLP models were applied to another brain and knee datasets acquired with different scan parameters and also to multiple phase-cycled bSSFP functional MRI datasets acquired on rat brain at 9.4T, in comparison with the conventional MIP method. Simulations were also performed to validate the MLP approach. Both the simulations and human experiments demonstrated that MLP suppressed banding artifacts significantly, superior to MIP in both banding artifact suppression and SNR efficiency. MLP demonstrated superior performance over MIP for the 9.4T fMRI data as well, which was not used for training the models, while visually preserving the fMRI maps very well. Artificial neural network is a promising technique for combining multiple phase-cycled bSSFP datasets for banding artifact suppression. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All

Balance of excitation and inhibition determines 1/f power spectrum in neuronal networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Lombardi, F; Herrmann, H J; de Arcangelis, L

2017-04-01

The 1/f-like decay observed in the power spectrum of electro-physiological signals, along with scale-free statistics of the so-called neuronal avalanches, constitutes evidence of criticality in neuronal systems. Recent in vitro studies have shown that avalanche dynamics at criticality corresponds to some specific balance of excitation and inhibition, thus suggesting that this is a basic feature of the critical state of neuronal networks. In particular, a lack of inhibition significantly alters the temporal structure of the spontaneous avalanche activity and leads to an anomalous abundance of large avalanches. Here, we study the relationship between network inhibition and the scaling exponent β of the power spectral density (PSD) of avalanche activity in a neuronal network model inspired in Self-Organized Criticality. We find that this scaling exponent depends on the percentage of inhibitory synapses and tends to the value β = 1 for a percentage of about 30%. More specifically, β is close to 2, namely, Brownian noise, for purely excitatory networks and decreases towards values in the interval [1, 1.4] as the percentage of inhibitory synapses ranges between 20% and 30%, in agreement with experimental findings. These results indicate that the level of inhibition affects the frequency spectrum of resting brain activity and suggest the analysis of the PSD scaling behavior as a possible tool to study pathological conditions.

Typical balance exercises or exergames for balance improvement?

Science.gov (United States)

Gioftsidou, Asimenia; Vernadakis, Nikolaos; Malliou, Paraskevi; Batzios, Stavros; Sofokleous, Polina; Antoniou, Panagiotis; Kouli, Olga; Tsapralis, Kyriakos; Godolias, George

2013-01-01

Balance training is an effective intervention to improve static postural sway and balance. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of the Nintendo Wii Fit Plus exercises for improving balance ability in healthy collegiate students in comparison with a typical balance training program. Forty students were randomly divided into two groups, a traditional (T group) and a Nintendo Wii group (W group) performed an 8 week balance program. The "W group" used the interactive games as a training method, while the "T group" used an exercise program with mini trampoline and inflatable discs (BOSU). Pre and Post-training participants completed balance assessments. Two-way repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to determine the effect of training program. Analysis of the data illustrated that both training program groups demonstrated an improvement in Total, Anterior-posterior and Medial Lateral Stability Index scores for both limbs. Only at the test performed in the balance board with anterior-posterior motion, the improvement in balance ability was greater in the "T group" than the "W group", when the assessment was performed post-training (p=0.023). Findings support the effectiveness of using the Nintendo Wii gaming console as a balance training intervention tool.

The Homogeneity Research of Urban Rail Transit Network Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Fu-jian

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Urban Rail Transit is an important part of the public transit, it is necessary to carry out the corresponding network function analysis. Previous studies mainly about network performance analysis of a single city rail transit, lacking of horizontal comparison between the multi-city, it is difficult to find inner unity of different Urban Rail Transit network functions. Taking into account the Urban Rail Transit network is a typical complex networks, so this paper proposes the application of complex network theory to research the homogeneity of Urban Rail Transit network performance. This paper selects rail networks of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou as calculation case, gave them a complex network mapping through the L, P Space method and had a static topological analysis using complex network theory, Network characteristics in three cities were calculated and analyzed form node degree distribution and node connection preference. Finally, this paper studied the network efficiency changes of Urban Rail Transit system under different attack mode. The results showed that, although rail transport network size, model construction and construction planning of the three cities are different, but their network performance in many aspects showed high homogeneity.

Coverage extension and balancing the transmitted power of the moving relay node at LTE-A cellular network.

Science.gov (United States)

Aldhaibani, Jaafar A; Yahya, Abid; Ahmad, R Badlishah

2014-01-01

The poor capacity at cell boundaries is not enough to meet the growing demand and stringent design which required high capacity and throughput irrespective of user's location in the cellular network. In this paper, we propose new schemes for an optimum fixed relay node (RN) placement in LTE-A cellular network to enhance throughput and coverage extension at cell edge region. The proposed approach mitigates interferences between all nodes and ensures optimum utilization with the optimization of transmitted power. Moreover, we proposed a new algorithm to balance the transmitted power of moving relay node (MR) over cell size and providing required SNR and throughput at the users inside vehicle along with reducing the transmitted power consumption by MR. The numerical analysis along with the simulation results indicates that an improvement in capacity for users is 40% increment at downlink transmission from cell capacity. Furthermore, the results revealed that there is saving nearly 75% from transmitted power in MR after using proposed balancing algorithm. ATDI simulator was used to verify the numerical results, which deals with real digital cartographic and standard formats for terrain.

Computerized heat balance models to predict performance of operating nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Breeding, C.L.; Carter, J.C.; Schaefer, R.C.

1983-01-01

The use of computerized heat balance models has greatly enhanced the decision making ability of TVA's Division of Nuclear Power. These models are utilized to predict the effects of various operating modes and to analyze changes in plant performance resulting from turbine cycle equipment modifications with greater speed and accuracy than was possible before. Computer models have been successfully used to optimize plant output by predicting the effects of abnormal condenser circulating water conditions. They were utilized to predict the degradation in performance resulting from installation of a baffle plate assembly to replace damaged low-pressure blading, thereby providing timely information allowing an optimal economic judgement as to when to replace the blading. Future use will be for routine performance test analysis. This paper presents the benefits of utility use of computerized heat balance models

Implementing the Systems of Performance Management Indicators (Balanced Scorecard) Within Notary Offices From Romania

OpenAIRE

George Cristian SCHIN; Margareta RACOVITA; Viorel SUSANU

2011-01-01

The article concentrates on the analysis of the results of a research performed in performance management domain applied within notary offices from Romania. The results of the most relevant sections of the research:the level of understanding and knowledge of Balanced Scorecard concept by notaries’ public from Romania, main arguments for notaries’ public from Romania that desire to implement Balanced Scorecards within notary offices, as well as the success factors that facilitate implementing ...

Handoff Triggering and Network Selection Algorithms for Load-Balancing Handoff in CDMA-WLAN Integrated Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khalid Qaraqe

2008-10-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a novel vertical handoff algorithm between WLAN and CDMA networks to enable the integration of these networks. The proposed vertical handoff algorithm assumes a handoff decision process (handoff triggering and network selection. The handoff trigger is decided based on the received signal strength (RSS. To reduce the likelihood of unnecessary false handoffs, the distance criterion is also considered. As a network selection mechanism, based on the wireless channel assignment algorithm, this paper proposes a context-based network selection algorithm and the corresponding communication algorithms between WLAN and CDMA networks. This paper focuses on a handoff triggering criterion which uses both the RSS and distance information, and a network selection method which uses context information such as the dropping probability, blocking probability, GoS (grade of service, and number of handoff attempts. As a decision making criterion, the velocity threshold is determined to optimize the system performance. The optimal velocity threshold is adjusted to assign the available channels to the mobile stations. The optimal velocity threshold is adjusted to assign the available channels to the mobile stations using four handoff strategies. The four handoff strategies are evaluated and compared with each other in terms of GOS. Finally, the proposed scheme is validated by computer simulations.

Handoff Triggering and Network Selection Algorithms for Load-Balancing Handoff in CDMA-WLAN Integrated Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kim Jang-Sub

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a novel vertical handoff algorithm between WLAN and CDMA networks to enable the integration of these networks. The proposed vertical handoff algorithm assumes a handoff decision process (handoff triggering and network selection. The handoff trigger is decided based on the received signal strength (RSS. To reduce the likelihood of unnecessary false handoffs, the distance criterion is also considered. As a network selection mechanism, based on the wireless channel assignment algorithm, this paper proposes a context-based network selection algorithm and the corresponding communication algorithms between WLAN and CDMA networks. This paper focuses on a handoff triggering criterion which uses both the RSS and distance information, and a network selection method which uses context information such as the dropping probability, blocking probability, GoS (grade of service, and number of handoff attempts. As a decision making criterion, the velocity threshold is determined to optimize the system performance. The optimal velocity threshold is adjusted to assign the available channels to the mobile stations. The optimal velocity threshold is adjusted to assign the available channels to the mobile stations using four handoff strategies. The four handoff strategies are evaluated and compared with each other in terms of GOS. Finally, the proposed scheme is validated by computer simulations.

Adaptive competitive learning neural networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmed R. Abas

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the adaptive competitive learning (ACL neural network algorithm is proposed. This neural network not only groups similar input feature vectors together but also determines the appropriate number of groups of these vectors. This algorithm uses a new proposed criterion referred to as the ACL criterion. This criterion evaluates different clustering structures produced by the ACL neural network for an input data set. Then, it selects the best clustering structure and the corresponding network architecture for this data set. The selected structure is composed of the minimum number of clusters that are compact and balanced in their sizes. The selected network architecture is efficient, in terms of its complexity, as it contains the minimum number of neurons. Synaptic weight vectors of these neurons represent well-separated, compact and balanced clusters in the input data set. The performance of the ACL algorithm is evaluated and compared with the performance of a recently proposed algorithm in the literature in clustering an input data set and determining its number of clusters. Results show that the ACL algorithm is more accurate and robust in both determining the number of clusters and allocating input feature vectors into these clusters than the other algorithm especially with data sets that are sparsely distributed.

Topological Embedding Feature Based Resource Allocation in Network Virtualization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hongyan Cui

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Virtualization provides a powerful way to run multiple virtual networks on a shared substrate network, which needs accurate and efficient mathematical models. Virtual network embedding is a challenge in network virtualization. In this paper, considering the degree of convergence when mapping a virtual network onto substrate network, we propose a new embedding algorithm based on topology mapping convergence-degree. Convergence-degree means the adjacent degree of virtual network’s nodes when they are mapped onto a substrate network. The contributions of our method are as below. Firstly, we map virtual nodes onto the substrate nodes with the maximum convergence-degree. The simulation results show that our proposed algorithm largely enhances the network utilization efficiency and decreases the complexity of the embedding problem. Secondly, we define the load balance rate to reflect the load balance of substrate links. The simulation results show our proposed algorithm achieves better load balance. Finally, based on the feature of star topology, we further improve our embedding algorithm and make it suitable for application in the star topology. The test result shows it gets better performance than previous works.

Balance Sheet Network Analysis of Too-Connected-to-Fail Risk in Global and Domestic Banking Systems

OpenAIRE

Jorge A Chan-Lau

2010-01-01

The 2008/9 financial crisis highlighted the importance of evaluating vulnerabilities owing to interconnectedness, or Too-Connected-to-Fail risk, among financial institutions for country monitoring, financial surveillance, investment analysis and risk management purposes. This paper illustrates the use of balance sheet-based network analysis to evaluate interconnectedness risk, under extreme adverse scenarios, in banking systems in mature and emerging market countries, and between individual b...

Efficient Coding and Energy Efficiency Are Promoted by Balanced Excitatory and Inhibitory Synaptic Currents in Neuronal Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Lianchun; Shen, Zhou; Wang, Chen; Yu, Yuguo

2018-01-01

Selective pressure may drive neural systems to process as much information as possible with the lowest energy cost. Recent experiment evidence revealed that the ratio between synaptic excitation and inhibition (E/I) in local cortex is generally maintained at a certain value which may influence the efficiency of energy consumption and information transmission of neural networks. To understand this issue deeply, we constructed a typical recurrent Hodgkin-Huxley network model and studied the general principles that governs the relationship among the E/I synaptic current ratio, the energy cost and total amount of information transmission. We observed in such a network that there exists an optimal E/I synaptic current ratio in the network by which the information transmission achieves the maximum with relatively low energy cost. The coding energy efficiency which is defined as the mutual information divided by the energy cost, achieved the maximum with the balanced synaptic current. Although background noise degrades information transmission and imposes an additional energy cost, we find an optimal noise intensity that yields the largest information transmission and energy efficiency at this optimal E/I synaptic transmission ratio. The maximization of energy efficiency also requires a certain part of energy cost associated with spontaneous spiking and synaptic activities. We further proved this finding with analytical solution based on the response function of bistable neurons, and demonstrated that optimal net synaptic currents are capable of maximizing both the mutual information and energy efficiency. These results revealed that the development of E/I synaptic current balance could lead a cortical network to operate at a highly efficient information transmission rate at a relatively low energy cost. The generality of neuronal models and the recurrent network configuration used here suggest that the existence of an optimal E/I cell ratio for highly efficient energy

26 CFR 801.1 - Balanced performance measurement system; in general.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... general. 801.1 Section 801.1 Internal Revenue INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY... WITHIN THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE § 801.1 Balanced performance measurement system; in general. (a) In general. (1) The regulations in this part 801 implement the provisions of sections 1201 and 1204 of the...

Performance Measurement Using Balanced Scorecard Concept On Co-Operatives Implication In Indonesia

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Ernita

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract This study aims to apply the concept of balanced scorecards in measurement of co-operatives performance based on vision and mission. So far the assessment of co-operative performance in Indonesia is not take into account the social hold co-operative while co-operatives carrying a dual mission. Research conducted in in North Sumatera Province in Indonesia. The sample consisting of one hundred co-operatives that are still active run annual members meeting. Co-operative performance was assessed based on its fourth perspective i.e. membership financial internal process and learning amp growth. The indicator key of cooperative performance was determined by taking into account the performance assessment on co-operatives as articulated of State Minister for Co-operatives and SMEs No.129KEPMKUMKMXI2002 and the regulations of the State Minister for Co-operatives and SME No.06PerM.KUKMV2006. Therefore this research were contributed a method in assessing co-operative performance using Balanced Scorecard concept with the four perspective namely membership perspective financial perspective internal process perspective and learning amp growth perspective.

In-Network Performance of Handheld Mobile Terminals

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Jesper Ødum; Pedersen, Gert Frølund

2006-01-01

are compared with the equivalent performance obtained in a live GSM network using data from the Abis network interface. This method does not require altering of the handsets and the testing uses normal calls in the network. The investigation is based on measurements with four different commercially available...

Network performance of a wireless sensor network for temperature monitoring in vineyards

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liscano, Ramiro; Jacoub, John Khalil; Dersingh, Anand

2011-01-01

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are an emerging technology which can be used for outdoor environmental monitoring. This paper presents challenges that arose from the development and deployment of a WSN for environmental monitoring as well as network performance analysis of this network. Different...... components in our sensor network architecture are presented like the physical nodes, the sensor node code, and two messaging protocols; one for collecting sensor and network values and the other for sensor node commands. An information model for sensor nodes to support plug-and-play capabilities in sensor...... networks is also presented....

Find_tfSBP: find thermodynamics-feasible and smallest balanced pathways with high yield from large-scale metabolic networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Zixiang; Sun, Jibin; Wu, Qiaqing; Zhu, Dunming

2017-12-11

Biologically meaningful metabolic pathways are important references in the design of industrial bacterium. At present, constraint-based method is the only way to model and simulate a genome-scale metabolic network under steady-state criteria. Due to the inadequate assumption of the relationship in gene-enzyme-reaction as one-to-one unique association, computational difficulty or ignoring the yield from substrate to product, previous pathway finding approaches can't be effectively applied to find out the high yield pathways that are mass balanced in stoichiometry. In addition, the shortest pathways may not be the pathways with high yield. At the same time, a pathway, which exists in stoichiometry, may not be feasible in thermodynamics. By using mixed integer programming strategy, we put forward an algorithm to identify all the smallest balanced pathways which convert the source compound to the target compound in large-scale metabolic networks. The resulting pathways by our method can finely satisfy the stoichiometric constraints and non-decomposability condition. Especially, the functions of high yield and thermodynamics feasibility have been considered in our approach. This tool is tailored to direct the metabolic engineering practice to enlarge the metabolic potentials of industrial strains by integrating the extensive metabolic network information built from systems biology dataset.

Comparing the effects of balance training with and without cognitive tasks on the quality of life and balance performance in community-dwelling older adults: a single-blind randomized clinical trial

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Ehsan Sinaei

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background: Aging process can deteriorate the ability to maintain balance, specifically under dual-task conditions. Thus far, different methods of exercises therapy have been applied to improve balance performance of older adults. The present study was designed to compare the effects of two protocols of balance training on the quality of life (QoL and balance performance in older adults with mild balance impairments. Methods: Twenty-four older adults over 60 years old were allocated randomly into single-task (n=12 and dual-task (n=12 exercise groups. Single-task group received routine balance exercises, over a four-week period and dual-task group was treated by the same exercise program plus a cognitive task. QoL and balance status were assessed by the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36 and Fullerton Advanced Balance scale (FAB questionnaires, before and after the interventions. Results: After four weeks of training, balance performance and some factors of QoL improved significantly in both groups (P<0.05. However, there were no significant differences in any of the variables between the two groups. Conclusion: Balance exercises, under both single- and dual-task conditions can improve the balance level and some aspects of QoL in older adults with mild balance impairments, with no priority of one group over another.

Balance training with multi-task exercises improves fall-related self-efficacy, gait, balance performance and physical function in older adults with osteoporosis: a randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Halvarsson, Alexandra; Franzén, Erika; Ståhle, Agneta

2015-04-01

To evaluate the effects of a balance training program including dual- and multi-task exercises on fall-related self-efficacy, fear of falling, gait and balance performance, and physical function in older adults with osteoporosis with an increased risk of falling and to evaluate whether additional physical activity would further improve the effects. Randomized controlled trial, including three groups: two intervention groups (Training, or Training+Physical activity) and one Control group, with a 12-week follow-up. Stockholm County, Sweden. Ninety-six older adults, aged 66-87, with verified osteoporosis. A specific and progressive balance training program including dual- and multi-task three times/week for 12 weeks, and physical activity for 30 minutes, three times/week. Fall-related self-efficacy (Falls Efficacy Scale-International), fear of falling (single-item question - 'In general, are you afraid of falling?'), gait speed with and without a cognitive dual-task at preferred pace and fast walking (GAITRite®), balance performance tests (one-leg stance, and modified figure of eight), and physical function (Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument). Both intervention groups significantly improved their fall-related self-efficacy as compared to the controls (p ≤ 0.034, 4 points) and improved their balance performance. Significant differences over time and between groups in favour of the intervention groups were found for walking speed with a dual-task (p=0.003), at fast walking speed (p=0.008), and for advanced lower extremity physical function (p=0.034). This balance training program, including dual- and multi-task, improves fall-related self-efficacy, gait speed, balance performance, and physical function in older adults with osteoporosis. © The Author(s) 2014.

Structure of Small World Innovation Network and Learning Performance

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Shuang Song

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the differences of learning performance of 5 MNCs (multinational corporations that filed the largest number of patents in China. We establish the innovation network with the patent coauthorship data by these 5 MNCs and classify the networks by the tail of distribution curve of connections. To make a comparison of the learning performance of these 5 MNCs with differing network structures, we develop an organization learning model by regarding the reality as having m dimensions, which denotes the heterogeneous knowledge about the reality. We further set n innovative individuals that are mutually interactive and own unique knowledge about the reality. A longer (shorter distance between the knowledge of the individual and the reality denotes a lower (higher knowledge level of that individual. Individuals interact with and learn from each other within the small-world network. By making 1,000 numerical simulations and averaging the simulated results, we find that the differing structure of the small-world network leads to the differences of learning performance between these 5 MNCs. The network monopolization negatively impacts and network connectivity positively impacts learning performance. Policy implications in the conclusion section suggest that to improve firm learning performance, it is necessary to establish a flat and connective network.

Dynamic balance performance and noncontact lower extremity injury in college football players: an initial study.

Science.gov (United States)

Butler, Robert J; Lehr, Michael E; Fink, Michael L; Kiesel, Kyle B; Plisky, Phillip J

2013-09-01

Field expedient screening tools that can identify individuals at an elevated risk for injury are needed to minimize time loss in American football players. Previous research has suggested that poor dynamic balance may be associated with an elevated risk for injury in athletes; however, this has yet to be examined in college football players. To determine if dynamic balance deficits are associated with an elevated risk of injury in collegiate football players. It was hypothesized that football players with lower performance and increased asymmetry in dynamic balance would be at an elevated risk for sustaining a noncontact lower extremity injury. Prospective cohort study. Fifty-nine collegiate American football players volunteered for this study. Demographic information, injury history, and dynamic balance testing performance were collected, and noncontact lower extremity injuries were recorded over the course of the season. Receiver operator characteristic curves were calculated based on performance on the Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), including composite score and asymmetry, to determine the population-specific risk cut-off point. Relative risk was then calculated based on these variables, as well as previous injury. A cut-off point of 89.6% composite score on the SEBT optimized the sensitivity (100%) and specificity (71.7%). A college football player who scored below 89.6% was 3.5 times more likely to get injured. Poor performance on the SEBT may be related to an increased risk for sustaining a noncontact lower extremity injury over the course of a competitive American football season. College football players should be screened preseason using the SEBT to identify those at an elevated risk for injury based upon dynamic balance performance to implement injury mitigation strategies to this specific subgroup of athletes.

Scholastic performance and functional connectivity of brain networks in children.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Chaddock-Heyman

Full Text Available One of the keys to understanding scholastic success is to determine the neural processes involved in school performance. The present study is the first to use a whole-brain connectivity approach to explore whether functional connectivity of resting state brain networks is associated with scholastic performance in seventy-four 7- to 9-year-old children. We demonstrate that children with higher scholastic performance across reading, math and language have more integrated and interconnected resting state networks, specifically the default mode network, salience network, and frontoparietal network. To add specificity, core regions of the dorsal attention and visual networks did not relate to scholastic performance. The results extend the cognitive role of brain networks in children as well as suggest the importance of network connectivity in scholastic success.

Implementing the Systems of Performance Management Indicators (Balanced Scorecard Within Notary Offices From Romania

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George Cristian SCHIN

2011-11-01

Full Text Available The article concentrates on the analysis of the results of a research performed in performance management domain applied within notary offices from Romania. The results of the most relevant sections of the research:the level of understanding and knowledge of Balanced Scorecard concept by notaries’ public from Romania, main arguments for notaries’ public from Romania that desire to implement Balanced Scorecards within notary offices, as well as the success factors that facilitate implementing and using Balanced Scorecard concept within notary offices, involved both a graphical representation, as well as an interpretation from the point of view of integrating the notary services in the problematic of public services management. In the final part of the paper, we formulated a series of proposals for the decision factors from Romanian notary system in order to increase the performances of this domain on medium and long term.

Enhancing neural-network performance via assortativity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Franciscis, Sebastiano de; Johnson, Samuel; Torres, Joaquin J.

2011-01-01

The performance of attractor neural networks has been shown to depend crucially on the heterogeneity of the underlying topology. We take this analysis a step further by examining the effect of degree-degree correlations - assortativity - on neural-network behavior. We make use of a method recently put forward for studying correlated networks and dynamics thereon, both analytically and computationally, which is independent of how the topology may have evolved. We show how the robustness to noise is greatly enhanced in assortative (positively correlated) neural networks, especially if it is the hub neurons that store the information.

Balance control in older adults

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van Dieën, Jaap H.; Pijnappels, Mirjam

2017-01-01

To avoid falls during everyday movements, we need to maintain balance, i.e., control the position of our body's center of mass relative to our base of support. The balance control system comprises sensory subsystems, their afferent nerves, an extensive brain network, and the motor system.

Moderated Mediation between Work Life Balance and Employee Job Performance: The Role of Psychological Wellbeing and Satisfaction with Coworkers

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Sajid Haider

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This research examined a moderated mediation model for answering how and why work-life balance affects employee job performance, and how satisfaction with coworkers is contingent upon it by enhancing employee’s psychological wellbeing. Data were collected from subordinates and their supervisors in the banking sector (N = 284. Empirical results indicate that psychological wellbeing mediates the link between work-life balance and job performance, and employees’ satisfaction with coworkers enhances job performance by strengthening the effect of work-life balance on psychological wellbeing. This research contributes to personnel management literature by describing moderated mediation mechanisms through which work-life balance influences employee job performance, and guides practitioners by emphasizing that employees with greater work-life balance perform better when their psychological wellbeing is reinforced by their satisfaction with coworkers.

Musculoskeletal Strength, Balance Performance, and Self-Efficacy in Elderly Ving Tsun Chinese Martial Art Practitioners: Implications for Fall Prevention

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Shirley S. M.; Ng, Shamay S. M.; Liu, Karen P. Y.; Pang, Marco Y. C.; Lee, H. W.; Chung, Joanne W. Y.; Lam, Priscillia L.; Guo, X.

2014-01-01

Objectives. To (1) compare the bone strength, lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy between Ving Tsun (VT) martial art practitioners and nonpractitioners and (2) identify the associations between lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy among the VT-trained participants. Methods. Thirty-five VT practitioners (mean age ± SD = 62.7 ± 13.3 years) and 49 nonpractitioners (mean age ± SD = 65.9 ± 10.5 years) participated in the study. The bone strength of the distal radius, lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy were assessed using an ultrasound bone sonometer, the five times sit-to-stand test (FTSTS), the Berg balance scale (BBS), and the Chinese version of the activities-specific balance confidence scale, respectively. A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed to compare all the outcome variables between the two groups. Results. Elderly VT practitioners had higher radial bone strength on the dominant side (P < 0.05), greater lower limb muscular strength (P = 0.001), better functional balance performance (P = 0.003), and greater balance confidence (P < 0.001) than the nonpractitioners. Additionally, only the FTSTS time revealed a significant association with the BBS score (r = −0.575,  P = 0.013). Conclusions. VT may be a suitable health-maintenance exercise for the elderly. Our findings may inspire the development of VT fall-prevention exercises for the community-dwelling healthy elderly. PMID:25530782

Musculoskeletal Strength, Balance Performance, and Self-Efficacy in Elderly Ving Tsun Chinese Martial Art Practitioners: Implications for Fall Prevention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shirley S. M. Fong

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Objectives. To (1 compare the bone strength, lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy between Ving Tsun (VT martial art practitioners and nonpractitioners and (2 identify the associations between lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy among the VT-trained participants. Methods. Thirty-five VT practitioners (mean age ± SD = 62.7 ± 13.3 years and 49 nonpractitioners (mean age ± SD = 65.9 ± 10.5 years participated in the study. The bone strength of the distal radius, lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy were assessed using an ultrasound bone sonometer, the five times sit-to-stand test (FTSTS, the Berg balance scale (BBS, and the Chinese version of the activities-specific balance confidence scale, respectively. A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed to compare all the outcome variables between the two groups. Results. Elderly VT practitioners had higher radial bone strength on the dominant side (P<0.05, greater lower limb muscular strength (P=0.001, better functional balance performance (P=0.003, and greater balance confidence (P<0.001 than the nonpractitioners. Additionally, only the FTSTS time revealed a significant association with the BBS score (r=-0.575, P=0.013. Conclusions. VT may be a suitable health-maintenance exercise for the elderly. Our findings may inspire the development of VT fall-prevention exercises for the community-dwelling healthy elderly.

Musculoskeletal strength, balance performance, and self-efficacy in elderly ving tsun chinese martial art practitioners: implications for fall prevention.

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Shirley S M; Ng, Shamay S M; Liu, Karen P Y; Pang, Marco Y C; Lee, H W; Chung, Joanne W Y; Lam, Priscillia L; Guo, X

2014-01-01

Objectives. To (1) compare the bone strength, lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy between Ving Tsun (VT) martial art practitioners and nonpractitioners and (2) identify the associations between lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy among the VT-trained participants. Methods. Thirty-five VT practitioners (mean age ± SD = 62.7 ± 13.3 years) and 49 nonpractitioners (mean age ± SD = 65.9 ± 10.5 years) participated in the study. The bone strength of the distal radius, lower limb muscular strength, functional balance performance, and balance self-efficacy were assessed using an ultrasound bone sonometer, the five times sit-to-stand test (FTSTS), the Berg balance scale (BBS), and the Chinese version of the activities-specific balance confidence scale, respectively. A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed to compare all the outcome variables between the two groups. Results. Elderly VT practitioners had higher radial bone strength on the dominant side (P < 0.05), greater lower limb muscular strength (P = 0.001), better functional balance performance (P = 0.003), and greater balance confidence (P < 0.001) than the nonpractitioners. Additionally, only the FTSTS time revealed a significant association with the BBS score (r = -0.575,  P = 0.013). Conclusions. VT may be a suitable health-maintenance exercise for the elderly. Our findings may inspire the development of VT fall-prevention exercises for the community-dwelling healthy elderly.

Networks, Micro Small Enterprises (MSE'S) and Performance: the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Networks, Micro Small Enterprises (MSE'S) and Performance: the Case of Kenya. ... It adopts the network perspective theoretical approach. Empirically, the ... entrepreneurial personal network as a copying strategy in the process of global

The effect of 6-week combined agility-balance training on neuromuscular performance in basketball players.

Science.gov (United States)

Zemková, E; Hamar, D

2010-09-01

The study evaluates the effect of 6-week combined agility-balance training on neuromuscular performance in basketball players. Subjects divided into experimental (EG, n = 17) and control group (CG, n = 17) underwent a combined agility-balance training (in duration of 30 min) for a period of 6 weeks (4-5 sessions/week). Both groups performed reaction tasks similar to game-like situations, however EG on wobble boards and CG on stable surface. Prior to and after the training parameters of agility, balance, speed of step initiation, strength differentiation accuracy, and explosive power of lower limbs were evaluated. Postural stability was assessed under both static and dynamic conditions (wobble board) with eyes open and eyes closed, respectively. The velocity of the centre of pressure (COP) was registered at 100 Hz by means of posturography system FiTRO Sway check based on dynamometric platform. Using FiTRO Reaction check simple and multi-choice reaction times were measured. The same system was applied to evaluate the agility performance including reaction and movement task. Speed of step initiation was measured using FiTRO Dyne Premium. Jumping abilities were evaluated by means of FiTRO Jumper (10-seconds maximal jumps, Countermovement jump, Squat jump, Drop jump). Using the same system, the subject´s ability to match 50 % of their maximal height of the jump was evaluated. Results showed that a combined agility-balance training improved dynamic balance not only under visual control but also in eyes closed conditions. Training also increased run-out speed that likely contributed to better agility performance, reduced ground contact time during drop jump, and improved the ability to differentiate the force of muscle contraction during repeated jumps. However, such training has been found to be insufficient to improve both simple and multi-choice reaction time, and jumping performance. On the other hand, control group failed to show any significant improvement in

Lack of Effect of Typical Rapid-Weight-Loss Practices on Balance and Anaerobic Performance in Apprentice Jockeys.

Science.gov (United States)

Cullen, SarahJane; Dolan, Eimear; O Brien, Kate; McGoldrick, Adrian; Warrington, Giles

2015-11-01

Balance and anaerobic performance are key attributes related to horse-racing performance, but research on the impact of making weight for racing on these parameters remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of rapid weight loss in preparation for racing on balance and anaerobic performance in a group of jockeys. Twelve apprentice male jockeys and 12 age- and gender-matched controls completed 2 trials separated by 48 h. In both trials, body mass, hydration status, balance, and anaerobic performance were assessed. Between the trials, the jockeys reduced body mass by 4% using weight-loss methods typically adopted in preparation for racing, while controls maintained body mass through typical daily dietary and physical activity habits. Apprentice jockeys decreased mean body mass by 4.2% ± 0.3% (P balance, on the left or right side, or in peak power, mean power, or fatigue index were reported between the trials in either group. Results from this study indicate that a 4% reduction in body mass in 48 h through the typical methods employed for racing, in association with an increase in dehydration, resulted in no impairments in balance or anaerobic performance. Further research is required to evaluate performance in a sport-specific setting and to investigate the specific physiological mechanisms involved.

Autonomy, Workload, Work-Life Balance and Job Performance among Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Johari, Johanim; Yean Tan, Fee; Zulkarnain, Zati Iwani Tjik

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of autonomy, workload, and work-life balance on job performance among teachers. A survey was carried out among teachers in public schools in the Northern Region of Peninsular Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a quantitative approach to address the research…

Impact Of Firewall On Network Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francis Kwadzo Agbenyegah

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This research work investigated the firewall security and performance relationship for distributed systems. Internet connectivity is growing with most enterprises migrating to the use of web based services for services provision. As organization grab the Internet as another business tool whether to sell to team up or to communicate - web applications have turned into the new weakest connection in the organizations security technique. Firewalls provide a mechanism for protecting these enterprises from the less secure internet over which customers or collaborating partners transfer packets destined for the corporate network. The connection between the security and execution proficiency is exhibited through distinctive scenarios and the relationship between security and performance in firewalls is assessed. We demonstrated distinctive networks with and without firewalls and diverse firewall functionality and simulated such systems with an eye on their performance. The simulation was done for 300 work stations and simulated in a way that all the 300 work stations access an email and web application under three different scenarios. Attention is on the relationship between system security and performance the impacts of firewalls on system execution. Different scenarios were assessed through simulations utilizing OPNET IT Guru Academic Edition 9.1 to demonstrate the impacts of firewalls on system performance. The result shows that maintaining security which involves the utilization of numerous applications and the use of firewall has an effect on network performance.

Balancing emergency message dissemination and network lifetime in wireless body area network using ant colony optimization and Bayesian game formulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Latha

Full Text Available Nowadays, Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN is emerging very fast and so many new methods and algorithms are coming up for finding the optimal path for disseminating emergency messages. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO is one of the cultural algorithms for solving many hard problems such as Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP. ACO is a natural behaviour of ants, which work stochastically with the help of pheromone trails deposited in the shortest route to find their food. This optimization procedure involves adapting, positive feedback and inherent parallelism. Each ant will deposit certain amount of pheromone in the tour construction it makes searching for food. This type of communication is known as stigmetric communication. In addition, if a dense WBAN environment prevails, such as hospital, i.e. in the environment of overlapping WBAN, game formulation was introduced for analyzing the mixed strategy behaviour of WBAN. In this paper, the ant colony optimization approach to the travelling salesman problem was applied to the WBAN to determine the shortest route for sending emergency message to the doctor via sensor nodes; and also a static Bayesian game formulation with mixed strategy was analysed to enhance the network lifetime. Whenever the patient needs any critical care or any other medical issue arises, emergency messages will be created by the WBAN and sent to the doctor's destination. All the modes of communication were realized in a simulation environment using OMNet++. The authors investigated a balanced model of emergency message dissemination and network lifetime in WBAN using ACO and Bayesian game formulation. Keywords: Wireless body area network, Ant colony optimization, Bayesian game model, Sensor network, Message latency, Network lifetime

Network Signaling Channel for Improving ZigBee Performance in Dynamic Cluster-Tree Networks

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D. Hämäläinen

2008-03-01

Full Text Available ZigBee is one of the most potential standardized technologies for wireless sensor networks (WSNs. Yet, sufficient energy-efficiency for the lowest power WSNs is achieved only in rather static networks. This severely limits the applicability of ZigBee in outdoor and mobile applications, where operation environment is harsh and link failures are common. This paper proposes a network channel beaconing (NCB algorithm for improving ZigBee performance in dynamic cluster-tree networks. NCB reduces the energy consumption of passive scans by dedicating one frequency channel for network beacon transmissions and by energy optimizing their transmission rate. According to an energy analysis, the power consumption of network maintenance operations reduces by 70%–76% in dynamic networks. In static networks, energy overhead is negligible. Moreover, the service time for data routing increases up to 37%. The performance of NCB is validated by ns-2 simulations. NCB can be implemented as an extension on MAC and NWK layers and it is fully compatible with ZigBee.

Wireless Local Area Network Performance Inside Aircraft Passenger Cabins

Science.gov (United States)

Whetten, Frank L.; Soroker, Andrew; Whetten, Dennis A.; Whetten, Frank L.; Beggs, John H.

2005-01-01

An examination of IEEE 802.11 wireless network performance within an aircraft fuselage is performed. This examination measured the propagated RF power along the length of the fuselage, and the associated network performance: the link speed, total throughput, and packet losses and errors. A total of four airplanes: one single-aisle and three twin-aisle airplanes were tested with 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g networks.

Ethernet image communication performance in a multimodal PACS network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lou, S.L.; Valentino, D.J.; Chan, K.K.; Huang, H.K.

1989-01-01

The authors have evaluated the performance of an Ethernet network in a multimodal picture archiving and communications system (PACS) environment. The study included measurements between Sun workstations and PC- AT computers running communication software at the TCP level. First they initiated image transfers between two workstations, a server and a client. Next, they successively added clients to transfer images to the server and they measured degradation in network performance. Finally, they initiated image transfers between pairs of workstations and again measured performance degradation. The results of the authors' experiments indicate that Ethernet is suitable for image communication only in limited network situations. They discuss how to maximize network performance given these constraints

High performance SDN enabled flat data center network architecture based on scalable and flow-controlled optical switching system

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Calabretta, N.; Miao, W.; Dorren, H.J.S.

2015-01-01

We demonstrate a reconfigurable virtual datacenter network by utilizing statistical multiplexing offered by scalable and flow-controlled optical switching system. Results show QoS guarantees by the priority assignment and load balancing for applications in virtual networks.

History of falls, balance performance, and quality of life in older cancer survivors.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Min H; Lytle, Tracy; Miller, Kara A; Smith, Kristin; Fredrickson, Kayle

2014-07-01

Older cancer survivors may be predisposed to falls because of the sequalae associated with cancer and its treatments. This study examined the association between the fall history, balance performance, and health-related quality of life (QoL) in older, community-dwelling cancer survivors who had completed primary cancer treatments. Forty-one cancer survivors (age = 67.9 ± 8.8 years) participated in the study. Balance performance was examined using the Activities-specific Balance Confidence Scale (ABC) and the Balance Evaluation Systems Test (BESTest). Scores from the Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) of the SF-36v2 were obtained to assess the QoL. The demographics and health status were comparable between the fallers and non-fallers. While 54% of the participants had experienced at least one fall in the past 12 months, 30% had experienced two or more falls. Spearman's correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between the outcomes from the ABC and the PCS (p falling by 13% (p falls are a significant problem and balance control is a determinant of perceived physical function and well-being. Older cancer survivors reporting a poor QoL in the physical health domain may have higher risks of falling. Future studies are needed to examine the risk factor profiles of falls and the interventions to prevent falls in older cancer survivors. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Efficiency Evaluation of Strategies for Dynamic Management of Wireless Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea Verônica González

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents and evaluates dynamic management strategies to improve efficiency in event-triggered wireless sensor networks. We are considering mobility, where nodes move themselves to maximize the coverage, and load balancing state-of-the-art techniques, by which the number of nodes sensing the same area is reduced. To explore mobility, we present a simple method by which nodes can dynamically reorganize themselves based on the force fields approach of mobile robotics. Firstly, the strategies are evaluated separately through experiments with different network configurations and, afterwards, a joint evaluation has been conducted to observe the impact of mobility on the efficiency of load balancing techniques. We show that mobile nodes significantly contribute to keeping the coverage as nodes die in mesh and powerfully improving it in random deployments. Load balancing techniques achieve important results, increasing lifetime and the number of sensed events. However, in random deployments, these techniques lose efficiency and become unsuitable strategies. Combining these strategies with mobility, we observe that PS-based technique keeps its contribution in mesh and random deployments, as well as improving its performance for not so dense networks. Ant-based technique when combined with mobile nodes loses performance significantly in mesh and keeps its good performance in random deployed and less dense networks.

Using a balanced scorecard to improve the performance of an emergency department.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Shu-Hsin; Chen, Ping-Ling; Yang, Ming-Chin; Chang, Wen-Yin; Lee, Haw-Jenn

2004-01-01

The performance of the emergency department significantly improved after implementing the balanced scorecard including hours of continuing education attended by the staff, staff job satisfaction, the rate of incomplete laboratory tests within 30 minutes, the average monthly inappropriate return rate, and hospital profit. The results can assist administrators plan for the future. Although this was a pilot program for implementing a balanced scorecard in an emergency department, the indicators used in this study may also be reasonable for a hospital that has limited resources.

Resource management for heterogeneous networks in LTE systems

CERN Document Server

Hu, Rose Qingyang

2014-01-01

This SpringerBrief provides an in-depth look at the key issues that affect the performance of heterogeneous networks and presents schemes that can effectively tackle these issues. In particular, this book discusses unbalanced traffic load among the macro and micro Base Stations (BSs) caused by the transmit power disparity, and a load-balancing based mobile association scheme to balance the traffic load among the macro and micro BSs. This book also introduces a fractional frequency reuse (FFR) scheme with proper power control to help reduce interference at the UEs which are most vulnerable to such intra-cell interference. The last section investigates radio resource allocation issues for heterogeneous networks with cooperative relays, and proposes a resource allocation framework that could achieve proportional fairness among the UEs. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in tackling the problem and improving network performance. Resource Management for Hetero...

The Effects of Specialization and Sex on Anterior Y-Balance Performance in High School Athletes.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Madeline M; Trapp, Jessica L; Post, Eric G; Trigsted, Stephanie M; McGuine, Timothy A; Brooks, M Alison; Bell, David R

Sport specialization and movement asymmetry have been separately discussed as potential risk factors for lower extremity injury. Early specialization may lead to the development of movement asymmetries that can predispose an athlete to injury, but this has not been thoroughly examined. Athletes rated as specialized would exhibit greater between-limb anterior reach asymmetry and decreased anterior reach distance on the Y-balance test (YBT) as compared with nonspecialized high school athletes, and these differences would not be dependent on sex. Cross-sectional study. Level 3. Two hundred ninety-five athletes (117 male, 178 female; mean age, 15.6 ± 1.2 years) from 2 local high schools participating in basketball, soccer, volleyball, and tennis responded to a questionnaire regarding sport specialization status and performed trials of the YBT during preseason testing. Specialization was categorized according to 3 previously utilized specialization classification methods (single/multisport, 3-point scale, and 6-point scale), and interactions between specialization and sex with Y-balance performance were calculated using 2-way analyses of variance. Single-sport male athletes displayed greater anterior reach asymmetry than other interaction groups. A consistent main effect was observed for sex, with men displaying greater anterior asymmetry and decreased anterior reach distance than women. However, the interaction effects of specialization and sex on anterior Y-balance performance varied based on the classification method used. Single-sport male athletes displayed greater anterior reach asymmetry on the YBT than multisport and female athletes. Specialization classification method is important because the 6- and 3-point scales may not accurately identify balance abnormalities. Male athletes performed worse than female athletes on both of the Y-balance tasks. Clinicians should be aware that single-sport male athletes may display deficits in dynamic balance, potentially

Using the balanced scorecard to align strategy and performance in long-term care.

Science.gov (United States)

Macdonald, M

1998-01-01

The Sisters of Charity of Ottawa Health Service (SCOHS) is a Canadian health care corporation that has adapted Kaplan and Norton's balanced scorecard to enhance strategic management and measurement in a multisite health care facility comprising long term care, continuing complex care, rehabilitative services, palliative care and ambulatory care. This article discusses how the SCOHS has incorporated the following principles into the balanced scorecard: demonstration of cause and effect; inclusion of outcomes and performance drivers; linkage to fiscal and utilization indicators; and integration of the mission and values of the organization. Examples of corporate level outcomes and performance measures are provided in the form of lead and lag indicators.

Testing the performance of a Dynamic Global Ecosystem Model: Water balance, carbon balance, and vegetation structure

Science.gov (United States)

Kucharik, Christopher J.; Foley, Jonathan A.; Delire, Christine; Fisher, Veronica A.; Coe, Michael T.; Lenters, John D.; Young-Molling, Christine; Ramankutty, Navin; Norman, John M.; Gower, Stith T.

2000-09-01

While a new class of Dynamic Global Ecosystem Models (DGEMs) has emerged in the past few years as an important tool for describing global biogeochemical cycles and atmosphere-biosphere interactions, these models are still largely untested. Here we analyze the behavior of a new DGEM and compare the results to global-scale observations of water balance, carbon balance, and vegetation structure. In this study, we use version 2 of the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS), which includes several major improvements and additions to the prototype model developed by Foley et al. [1996]. IBIS is designed to be a comprehensive model of the terrestrial biosphere; the model represents a wide range of processes, including land surface physics, canopy physiology, plant phenology, vegetation dynamics and competition, and carbon and nutrient cycling. The model generates global simulations of the surface water balance (e.g., runoff), the terrestrial carbon balance (e.g., net primary production, net ecosystem exchange, soil carbon, aboveground and belowground litter, and soil CO2 fluxes), and vegetation structure (e.g., biomass, leaf area index, and vegetation composition). In order to test the performance of the model, we have assembled a wide range of continental and global-scale data, including measurements of river discharge, net primary production, vegetation structure, root biomass, soil carbon, litter carbon, and soil CO2 flux. Using these field data and model results for the contemporary biosphere (1965-1994), our evaluation shows that simulated patterns of runoff, NPP, biomass, leaf area index, soil carbon, and total soil CO2 flux agree reasonably well with measurements that have been compiled from numerous ecosystems. These results also compare favorably to other global model results.

Effect of Vertical, Horizontal, and Combined Plyometric Training on Explosive, Balance, and Endurance Performance of Young Soccer Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramírez-Campillo, Rodrigo; Gallardo, Francisco; Henriquez-Olguín, Carlos; Meylan, Cesar M P; Martínez, Cristian; Álvarez, Cristian; Caniuqueo, Alexis; Cadore, Eduardo L; Izquierdo, Mikel

2015-07-01

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of 6 weeks of vertical, horizontal, or combined vertical and horizontal plyometric training on muscle explosive, endurance, and balance performance. Forty young soccer players aged between 10 and 14 years were randomly divided into control (CG; n = 10), vertical plyometric group (VG; n = 10), horizontal plyometric group (HG; n = 10), and combined vertical and horizontal plyometric group (VHG; n = 10). Players performance in the vertical and horizontal countermovement jump with arms, 5 multiple bounds test (MB5), 20-cm drop jump reactive strength index (RSI20), maximal kicking velocity (MKV), sprint, change of direction speed (CODS), Yo-Yo intermittent recovery level 1 test (Yo-Yo IR1), and balance was measured. No significant or meaningful changes in the CG, apart from small change in the Yo-Yo IR1, were observed while all training programs resulted in meaningful changes in explosive, endurance, and balance performance. However, only VHG showed a statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) increase in all performance test and most meaningful training effect difference with the CG across tests. Although no significant differences in performance changes were observed between experimental groups, the VHG program was more effective compared with VG (i.e., jumps, MKV, sprint, CODS, and balance performance) and HG (i.e., sprint, CODS, and balance performance) to small effect. The study demonstrated that vertical, horizontal, and combined vertical and horizontal jumps induced meaningful improvement in explosive actions, balance, and intermittent endurance capacity. However, combining vertical and horizontal drills seems more advantageous to induce greater performance improvements.

Balanced scorecard-based performance evaluation of Chinese county hospitals in underdeveloped areas.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Hongda; Chen, He; Feng, Jun; Qin, Xianjing; Wang, Xuan; Liang, Shenglin; Zhao, Jinmin; Feng, Qiming

2018-05-01

Objective Since the Guangxi government implemented public county hospital reform in 2009, there have been no studies of county hospitals in this underdeveloped area of China. This study aimed to establish an evaluation indicator system for Guangxi county hospitals and to generate recommendations for hospital development and policymaking. Methods A performance evaluation indicator system was developed based on balanced scorecard theory. Opinions were elicited from 25 experts from administrative units, universities and hospitals and the Delphi method was used to modify the performance indicators. The indicator system and the Topsis method were used to evaluate the performance of five county hospitals randomly selected from the same batch of 2015 Guangxi reform pilots. Results There were 4 first-level indicators, 9 second-level indicators and 36 third-level indicators in the final performance evaluation indicator system that showed good consistency, validity and reliability. The performance rank of the hospitals was B > E > A > C > D. Conclusions The performance evaluation indicator system established using the balanced scorecard is practical and scientific. Analysis of the results based on this indicator system identified several factors affecting hospital performance, such as resource utilisation efficiency, medical service price, personnel structure and doctor-patient relationships.

Determining the causal relationships among balanced scorecard perspectives on school safety performance: case of Saudi Arabia.

Science.gov (United States)

Alolah, Turki; Stewart, Rodney A; Panuwatwanich, Kriengsak; Mohamed, Sherif

2014-07-01

In the public schools of many developing countries, numerous accidents and incidents occur because of poor safety regulations and management systems. To improve the educational environment in Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Education seeks novel approaches to measure school safety performance in order to decrease incidents and accidents. The main objective of this research was to develop a systematic approach for measuring Saudi school safety performance using the balanced scorecard framework philosophy. The evolved third generation balanced scorecard framework is considered to be a suitable and robust framework that captures the system-wide leading and lagging indicators of business performance. The balanced scorecard architecture is ideal for adaptation to complex areas such as safety management where a holistic system evaluation is more effective than traditional compartmentalised approaches. In developing the safety performance balanced scorecard for Saudi schools, the conceptual framework was first developed and peer-reviewed by eighteen Saudi education experts. Next, 200 participants, including teachers, school executives, and Ministry of Education officers, were recruited to rate both the importance and the performance of 79 measurement items used in the framework. Exploratory factor analysis, followed by the confirmatory partial least squares method, was then conducted in order to operationalise the safety performance balanced scorecard, which encapsulates the following five salient perspectives: safety management and leadership; safety learning and training; safety policy, procedures and processes; workforce safety culture; and safety performance. Partial least squares based structural equation modelling was then conducted to reveal five significant relationships between perspectives, namely, safety management and leadership had a significant effect on safety learning and training and safety policy, procedures and processes, both safety learning and training

Efficient control of epidemics spreading on networks: balance between treatment and recovery.

Science.gov (United States)

Oleś, Katarzyna; Gudowska-Nowak, Ewa; Kleczkowski, Adam

2013-01-01

We analyse two models describing disease transmission and control on regular and small-world networks. We use simulations to find a control strategy that minimizes the total cost of an outbreak, thus balancing the costs of disease against that of the preventive treatment. The models are similar in their epidemiological part, but differ in how the removed/recovered individuals are treated. The differences in models affect choice of the strategy only for very cheap treatment and slow spreading disease. However for the combinations of parameters that are important from the epidemiological perspective (high infectiousness and expensive treatment) the models give similar results. Moreover, even where the choice of the strategy is different, the total cost spent on controlling the epidemic is very similar for both models.

Strategic performance in hospitals: the use of the balanced scorecard by nurse managers.

Science.gov (United States)

Naranjo-Gil, David

2009-01-01

The competitive and dynamic health care sector has spurred hospitals into delivering greater flexibility and quality of services while cutting the hospital cost at the same time. However, hospitals differ in the extent to which they achieve these strategic goals. This article explores the use of a new management tool-the balanced scorecard-which facilitates managers to meet multiple strategic goals. It also analyzes how nurse managers use the balanced scorecard in an interactive or diagnostic way and its subsequent effect on strategic goal achievement (cost reduction and flexibility). It also examines how "balanced" is the balanced scorecard in terms of financial versus nonfinancial measures. Data were collected from a mail survey sent to 218 nurse managers in Spanish public hospitals. A satisfactory response rate was achieved, with 114 (52.29%) useful answered questionnaires. The results show that younger, more tenured, and clinically trained nurse managers would be more likely to use the balanced scorecard in an interactive way. Conversely, older, less tenured, and administratively trained managers would use it diagnostically. The results also indicate that the balanced scorecard facilitates the cost reduction and flexibility in hospitals only when it is used interactively. This article provides evidence that not only the technical design of the balanced scorecard matters, but also an appropriate use of the balanced scorecard is paramount for achievement of multiple strategic goals. An effective use of the balanced scorecard requires managers to actively stimulate dialogue and agreement among hospital's staff about desirable financial and nonfinancial performance measures in alignment with multiple strategic goals.

The U-line line balancing problem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Miltenburg, G.J.; Wijngaard, J.

1994-01-01

The traditional line balancing (LB) problem considers a production line in which stations are arranged consecutively in a line. A balance is determined by grouping tasks into stations while moving forward (or backward) through a precedence network. Recently many production lines are being arranged

Gait characteristics, balance performance and falls in ambulant adults with cerebral palsy: An observational study.

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, P; Murphy, A; Opheim, A; McGinley, J

2016-07-01

The relationship between spatiotemporal gait parameters, balance performance and falls history was investigated in ambulant adults with cerebral palsy (CP). Participants completed a single assessment of gait using an instrumented walkway at preferred and fast speeds, balance testing (Balance Evaluation Systems Test; BESTest), and reported falls history. Seventeen ambulatory adults with CP, mean age 37 years, participated. Gait speed was typically slow at both preferred and fast speeds (mean 0.97 and 1.21m/s, respectively), with short stride length and high cadence relative to speed. There was a significant, large positive relationship between preferred gait speed and BESTest total score (ρ=0.573; pfalls taking shorter strides. Faster gait speed was associated with better performance on tests of anticipatory and postural response components of the BESTest, suggesting potential therapeutic training targets to address either gait speed or balance performance. Future exploration of the implications of slow walking speed and reduced stride length on falls and community engagement, and the potential prognostic value of stride length on identifying falls risk is recommended. Crown Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Dynamic Balance of Excitation and Inhibition in Human and Monkey Neocortex

Science.gov (United States)

Dehghani, Nima; Peyrache, Adrien; Telenczuk, Bartosz; Le van Quyen, Michel; Halgren, Eric; Cash, Sydney S.; Hatsopoulos, Nicholas G.; Destexhe, Alain

2016-03-01

Balance of excitation and inhibition is a fundamental feature of in vivo network activity and is important for its computations. However, its presence in the neocortex of higher mammals is not well established. We investigated the dynamics of excitation and inhibition using dense multielectrode recordings in humans and monkeys. We found that in all states of the wake-sleep cycle, excitatory and inhibitory ensembles are well balanced, and co-fluctuate with slight instantaneous deviations from perfect balance, mostly in slow-wave sleep. Remarkably, these correlated fluctuations are seen for many different temporal scales. The similarity of these computational features with a network model of self-generated balanced states suggests that such balanced activity is essentially generated by recurrent activity in the local network and is not due to external inputs. Finally, we find that this balance breaks down during seizures, where the temporal correlation of excitatory and inhibitory populations is disrupted. These results show that balanced activity is a feature of normal brain activity, and break down of the balance could be an important factor to define pathological states.

Improvements in the computation of balances and localization of commercial losses of electric energy in 0.38-kV networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vorotnitskii, V. Z.; Zaslonov, S. V.; Lysyuk, S. S.

2006-01-01

An example of four 0.38-kV overhead distribution lines fed from a 10/0.4-kV transformer substation of the Grodno Electrical Networks (Belarus') and supplying electricity to a cottage area is used for analyzing energy balances and commercial losses in the networks. It is shown that the reliability of such analysis can be ensured by the use of modern software and electronic energy meters recording a retrospective of half-hourly intervals of active and reactive electric energy

Performance of networks of artificial neurons: The role of clustering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Beom Jun

2004-01-01

The performance of the Hopfield neural network model is numerically studied on various complex networks, such as the Watts-Strogatz network, the Barabasi-Albert network, and the neuronal network of Caenorhabditis elegans. Through the use of a systematic way of controlling the clustering coefficient, with the degree of each neuron kept unchanged, we find that the networks with the lower clustering exhibit much better performance. The results are discussed in the practical viewpoint of application, and the biological implications are also suggested

Force10 networks performance in world's first transcontinental 10 gigabit ethernet network verified by Ixia

CERN Multimedia

2003-01-01

Force10 Networks, Inc., today announced that the performance of the Force10 E-Series switch/routers deployed in a transcontinental network has been verified as line-rate 10 GE throughput by Ixia, a leading provider of high-speed, network performance and conformance analysis systems. The network, the world's first transcontinental 10 GE wide area network, consists of a SURFnet OC-192 lambda between Geneva and the StarLight facility in Chicago via Amsterdam and another OC-192 lambda between this same facility in Chicago and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada provided by CANARIE and ORANO (1/2 page).

Information Dynamics as Foundation for Network Management

Science.gov (United States)

2014-12-04

developed to adapt to channel dynamics in a mobile network environment. We devise a low- complexity online scheduling algorithm integrated with the...has been accepted for the Journal on Network and Systems Management in 2014. - RINC programmable platform for Infrastructure -as-a-Service public... backend servers. Rather than implementing load balancing in dedicated appliances, commodity SDN switches can perform this function. We design

Making the link between work-life balance practices and organizational performance

OpenAIRE

T. Alexandra Beauregard; Lesley C. Henry

2009-01-01

The business case for work-life balance practices, as espoused by many organizations, rests on attracting better applicants and reducing work-life conflict among existing employees in order to enhance organizational performance. This review of the literature provides some evidence for the claim regarding recruitment, but there is insufficient evidence to support the notion that work-life practices enhance performance by means of reduced work-life conflict. We suggest that the business case ma...

Network performance and fault analytics for LTE wireless service providers

CERN Document Server

Kakadia, Deepak; Gilgur, Alexander

2017-01-01

 This book is intended to describe how to leverage emerging technologies big data analytics and SDN, to address challenges specific to LTE and IP network performance and fault management data in order to more efficiently manage and operate an LTE wireless networks. The proposed integrated solutions permit the LTE network service provider to operate entire integrated network, from RAN to Core , from UE to application service, as one unified system and correspondingly collect and align disparate key metrics and data, using an integrated and holistic approach to network analysis. The LTE wireless network performance and fault involves the network performance and management of network elements in EUTRAN, EPC and IP transport components, not only as individual components, but also as nuances of inter-working of these components. The key metrics for EUTRAN include radio access network accessibility, retainability, integrity, availability and mobility. The key metrics for EPC include MME accessibility, mobility and...

The Role of Ankle Proprioception for Balance Control in relation to Sports Performance and Injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Jia; Anson, Judith; Waddington, Gordon; Adams, Roger; Liu, Yu

2015-01-01

Balance control improvement is one of the most important goals in sports and exercise. Better balance is strongly positively associated with enhanced athletic performance and negatively associated with lower limb sports injuries. Proprioception plays an essential role in balance control, and ankle proprioception is arguably the most important. This paper reviews ankle proprioception and explores synergies with balance control, specifically in a sporting context. Central processing of ankle proprioceptive information, along with other sensory information, enables integration for balance control. When assessing ankle proprioception, the most generalizable findings arise from methods that are ecologically valid, allow proprioceptive signals to be integrated with general vision in the central nervous system, and reflect the signal-in-noise nature of central processing. Ankle proprioceptive intervention concepts driven by such a central processing theory are further proposed and discussed for the improvement of balance control in sport.

Virtual reality training improves balance function.

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Yurong; Chen, Peiming; Li, Le; Huang, Dongfeng

2014-09-01

Virtual reality is a new technology that simulates a three-dimensional virtual world on a computer and enables the generation of visual, audio, and haptic feedback for the full immersion of users. Users can interact with and observe objects in three-dimensional visual space without limitation. At present, virtual reality training has been widely used in rehabilitation therapy for balance dysfunction. This paper summarizes related articles and other articles suggesting that virtual reality training can improve balance dysfunction in patients after neurological diseases. When patients perform virtual reality training, the prefrontal, parietal cortical areas and other motor cortical networks are activated. These activations may be involved in the reconstruction of neurons in the cerebral cortex. Growing evidence from clinical studies reveals that virtual reality training improves the neurological function of patients with spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy and other neurological impairments. These findings suggest that virtual reality training can activate the cerebral cortex and improve the spatial orientation capacity of patients, thus facilitating the cortex to control balance and increase motion function.

Virtual reality training improves balance function

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Yurong; Chen, Peiming; Li, Le; Huang, Dongfeng

2014-01-01

Virtual reality is a new technology that simulates a three-dimensional virtual world on a computer and enables the generation of visual, audio, and haptic feedback for the full immersion of users. Users can interact with and observe objects in three-dimensional visual space without limitation. At present, virtual reality training has been widely used in rehabilitation therapy for balance dysfunction. This paper summarizes related articles and other articles suggesting that virtual reality training can improve balance dysfunction in patients after neurological diseases. When patients perform virtual reality training, the prefrontal, parietal cortical areas and other motor cortical networks are activated. These activations may be involved in the reconstruction of neurons in the cerebral cortex. Growing evidence from clinical studies reveals that virtual reality training improves the neurological function of patients with spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy and other neurological impairments. These findings suggest that virtual reality training can activate the cerebral cortex and improve the spatial orientation capacity of patients, thus facilitating the cortex to control balance and increase motion function. PMID:25368651

Network Management Services Based On The Openflow Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paweł Wilk

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The subject of this article is network management through web service calls, which allows software applications to exert an influence on network traffic. In this manner, software can make independent decisions concerning the direction of requests so that they can be served as soon as possible. This is important because only proper cooperation including all architecture layers can ensure the best performance, especially when software that largely depends on computer networks and utilizes them heavily is involved. To demonstrate that the approach described above is feasible and can be useful at the same time, this article presents a switch-level load balancer developed using OpenFlow. Client software communicates with the balancer through REST web service calls, which are used to provide information on current machine load and its ability to serve incoming requests. The result is a cheap, highly customizable and extremely fast load balancer with considerable potential for further development.

Hamlet, Performance and Chaotic Cultural Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emil Rybczak

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Since the 1960s, chaos theory has become an important but controversial tool used by scientists and mathematicians to describe physical or theoretical systems or networks. It explains how the simple can generate the complex. Its central tenets can also provide an alternative language and means of literary interpretation. This article will explore how the principles of chaos theory can be used to close read and systematise various aspects of the language and performance of Shakespeare. The argument is built upon an analysis of Hamlet, in an effort to understand the play and its reproduction as the evolution of interconnected complex networks. Various aspects of the text will be discussed, including its language, structural and character patterning, and its reproduction through performance and cinematic adaptation. Each of these topics, and the characters, devices or ideas they discuss, constitute nodes of the complex network of Hamlet as both text and idea. Responding to the cultural analysis of other scholars, this article uses Hamlet as an ideal example of how the appropriation of scientific language can defamiliarise a particular literary or dramatic artefact. This allows fresh interpretation and understanding of its location within the broader networks of theatre and culture. I suggest the possibilities of close reading literary works through the lens of chaos and suggest how they might be applied and developed in conjunction with other texts, media or performances.

Performance Management through a Balanced Scorecard - A SystemsDynamics Modelling Approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Steen; Nielsen, Erland Hejn

The object of this paper is to show how - normally separate practices - can be linked together to support the performance management system in a balanced scorecard framework. The monitor and learn of the strategy evaluation and the feedback process is important for the company to be on track...

Application of balanced score card in the development of performance indicator system in nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shen Shuguang; Huang Fang; Fang Zhaoxia

2013-01-01

Performance indicator, which is one of ten performance monitoring tools recommended by WANO performance improvement model, has become an effective tool for performance improvement of nuclear power plant. At present, performance indicator system has been built in nuclear power plant. However, how to establish the performance indicator system that is reasonable and applicable for plant is still a question to be discussed. Performance indictor is closely tied to the strategic direction of a corporation by a balanced score card, and the performance indicator system is established from the point of performance management and strategic development. The performance indicator system of nuclear power plant is developed by introducing the balanced score card, and can be as a reference for other domestic nuclear power plants. (authors)

Accurate optical vector network analyzer based on optical single-sideband modulation and balanced photodetection.

Science.gov (United States)

Xue, Min; Pan, Shilong; Zhao, Yongjiu

2015-02-15

A novel optical vector network analyzer (OVNA) based on optical single-sideband (OSSB) modulation and balanced photodetection is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, which can eliminate the measurement error induced by the high-order sidebands in the OSSB signal. According to the analytical model of the conventional OSSB-based OVNA, if the optical carrier in the OSSB signal is fully suppressed, the measurement result is exactly the high-order-sideband-induced measurement error. By splitting the OSSB signal after the optical device-under-test (ODUT) into two paths, removing the optical carrier in one path, and then detecting the two signals in the two paths using a balanced photodetector (BPD), high-order-sideband-induced measurement error can be ideally eliminated. As a result, accurate responses of the ODUT can be achieved without complex post-signal processing. A proof-of-concept experiment is carried out. The magnitude and phase responses of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) measured by the proposed OVNA with different modulation indices are superimposed, showing that the high-order-sideband-induced measurement error is effectively removed.

Territorial Balancing of Poles of Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

CLAUDIA POPESCU

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The paper is part of the study "Specific problems of the development of the settlement network in south-eastern Romania. Regions of development 3 (South, 4 (South-West and 8 (Bucharest-Ilfov" elaborated during 2004 – 2006, within the AMTRANS programme funded by the Ministry of Education and Research, coordinated by INCD – URBANPROIECT in partnership with the Institute of Geography of the Romanian Academy and the Qualification in Statistics National Centre. The general objective of the project was sustainable and balanced spatial development of the settlement network and promotion of new relationships between urban and rural. Concretely, the study has produced a model of a polycentric and balanced settlement network according to the European principles. The case study testing and validating this model took place in southern Romania, territory exhibiting acutely the entire range of problems related to the state of the settlement network: profoundly large rural areas, accentuated dynamics of declaring new cities without sufficient evidence, excessive polarization exercised by Bucharest, etc. The paper presents the intervention directions needed to balance in the territory urban poles within the studied area, focusing on the establishment of orientation policies to consolidate the role of each settlement based on the hierarchical level of importance: European, national, regional, and local. The paper also identifies possible functional urban areas: the metropolitan area of Bucharest, areas of potential strategic integration, areas of cooperation between the small and medium-sized cities and the rural regions. Within each of these areas, the paper proposes to establish new relationships between urban and rural based on partnership, involving cooperation and coordination in achieving common goals.The study considers that the poles of development are the key element of proposed model, and their identification, formation, and balanced distribution

A complex network approach to cloud computing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Travieso, Gonzalo; Ruggiero, Carlos Antônio; Bruno, Odemir Martinez; Costa, Luciano da Fontoura

2016-01-01

Cloud computing has become an important means to speed up computing. One problem influencing heavily the performance of such systems is the choice of nodes as servers responsible for executing the clients’ tasks. In this article we report how complex networks can be used to model such a problem. More specifically, we investigate the performance of the processing respectively to cloud systems underlaid by Erdős–Rényi (ER) and Barabási-Albert (BA) topology containing two servers. Cloud networks involving two communities not necessarily of the same size are also considered in our analysis. The performance of each configuration is quantified in terms of the cost of communication between the client and the nearest server, and the balance of the distribution of tasks between the two servers. Regarding the latter, the ER topology provides better performance than the BA for smaller average degrees and opposite behaviour for larger average degrees. With respect to cost, smaller values are found in the BA topology irrespective of the average degree. In addition, we also verified that it is easier to find good servers in ER than in BA networks. Surprisingly, balance and cost are not too much affected by the presence of communities. However, for a well-defined community network, we found that it is important to assign each server to a different community so as to achieve better performance. (paper: interdisciplinary statistical mechanics )

Dynamics of Competition between Subnetworks of Spiking Neuronal Networks in the Balanced State

Science.gov (United States)

Lagzi, Fereshteh; Rotter, Stefan

2015-01-01

We explore and analyze the nonlinear switching dynamics of neuronal networks with non-homogeneous connectivity. The general significance of such transient dynamics for brain function is unclear; however, for instance decision-making processes in perception and cognition have been implicated with it. The network under study here is comprised of three subnetworks of either excitatory or inhibitory leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, of which two are of the same type. The synaptic weights are arranged to establish and maintain a balance between excitation and inhibition in case of a constant external drive. Each subnetwork is randomly connected, where all neurons belonging to a particular population have the same in-degree and the same out-degree. Neurons in different subnetworks are also randomly connected with the same probability; however, depending on the type of the pre-synaptic neuron, the synaptic weight is scaled by a factor. We observed that for a certain range of the “within” versus “between” connection weights (bifurcation parameter), the network activation spontaneously switches between the two sub-networks of the same type. This kind of dynamics has been termed “winnerless competition”, which also has a random component here. In our model, this phenomenon is well described by a set of coupled stochastic differential equations of Lotka-Volterra type that imply a competition between the subnetworks. The associated mean-field model shows the same dynamical behavior as observed in simulations of large networks comprising thousands of spiking neurons. The deterministic phase portrait is characterized by two attractors and a saddle node, its stochastic component is essentially given by the multiplicative inherent noise of the system. We find that the dwell time distribution of the active states is exponential, indicating that the noise drives the system randomly from one attractor to the other. A similar model for a larger number of populations might

Dynamics of Competition between Subnetworks of Spiking Neuronal Networks in the Balanced State.

Science.gov (United States)

Lagzi, Fereshteh; Rotter, Stefan

2015-01-01

We explore and analyze the nonlinear switching dynamics of neuronal networks with non-homogeneous connectivity. The general significance of such transient dynamics for brain function is unclear; however, for instance decision-making processes in perception and cognition have been implicated with it. The network under study here is comprised of three subnetworks of either excitatory or inhibitory leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, of which two are of the same type. The synaptic weights are arranged to establish and maintain a balance between excitation and inhibition in case of a constant external drive. Each subnetwork is randomly connected, where all neurons belonging to a particular population have the same in-degree and the same out-degree. Neurons in different subnetworks are also randomly connected with the same probability; however, depending on the type of the pre-synaptic neuron, the synaptic weight is scaled by a factor. We observed that for a certain range of the "within" versus "between" connection weights (bifurcation parameter), the network activation spontaneously switches between the two sub-networks of the same type. This kind of dynamics has been termed "winnerless competition", which also has a random component here. In our model, this phenomenon is well described by a set of coupled stochastic differential equations of Lotka-Volterra type that imply a competition between the subnetworks. The associated mean-field model shows the same dynamical behavior as observed in simulations of large networks comprising thousands of spiking neurons. The deterministic phase portrait is characterized by two attractors and a saddle node, its stochastic component is essentially given by the multiplicative inherent noise of the system. We find that the dwell time distribution of the active states is exponential, indicating that the noise drives the system randomly from one attractor to the other. A similar model for a larger number of populations might suggest a

Performance Analysis of IIUM Wireless Campus Network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Latif, Suhaimi Abd; Masud, Mosharrof H; Anwar, Farhat

2013-01-01

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) is one of the leading universities in the world in terms of quality of education that has been achieved due to providing numerous facilities including wireless services to every enrolled student. The quality of this wireless service is controlled and monitored by Information Technology Division (ITD), an ISO standardized organization under the university. This paper aims to investigate the constraints of wireless campus network of IIUM. It evaluates the performance of the IIUM wireless campus network in terms of delay, throughput and jitter. QualNet 5.2 simulator tool has employed to measure these performances of IIUM wireless campus network. The observation from the simulation result could be one of the influencing factors in improving wireless services for ITD and further improvement

Multiplex network analysis of employee performance and employee social relationships

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Meng; Wang, Wei; Cui, Ying; Stanley, H. Eugene

2018-01-01

In human resource management, employee performance is strongly affected by both formal and informal employee networks. Most previous research on employee performance has focused on monolayer networks that can represent only single categories of employee social relationships. We study employee performance by taking into account the entire multiplex structure of underlying employee social networks. We collect three datasets consisting of five different employee relationship categories in three firms, and predict employee performance using degree centrality and eigenvector centrality in a superimposed multiplex network (SMN) and an unfolded multiplex network (UMN). We use a quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) analysis and a regression analysis to demonstrate that the different categories of relationship are mutually embedded and that the strength of their impact on employee performance differs. We also use weighted/unweighted SMN/UMN to measure the predictive accuracy of this approach and find that employees with high centrality in a weighted UMN are more likely to perform well. Our results shed new light on how social structures affect employee performance.

Material balance area custodian performance evaluation program at PNL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dickman, D.A.

1991-01-01

This paper reports that the material balance area (MBA) custodian has primary responsibility for control and accountability of nuclear material within an MBA. In this role, the custodian operates as an extension of the facility material control and accountability (MC and A) organization. To effectively meet administrative requirements and protection needs, the custodian must be fully trained in all aspects of MC and A related to the MBA, and custodian performance must be periodically evaluated. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Policy requires that each facility provide for a program which ensures that personnel performing MC and A functions are trained and/or qualified to perform their duties and responsibilities and knowledgeable of requirements and procedures related to their functions. the MBA Custodian Performance Evaluation Program at Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) uses a variety of assessment techniques to meet this goal, including internal and independent MBA audits, periodic custodian testing, limited scope performance tests, daily monitoring of MC and A documentation, and reviewing custodian performance during physical inventories

Effects of distractors on upright balance performance in school-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, preliminary study.

Science.gov (United States)

Aydinli, Fatma Esen; Çak, Tuna; Kirazli, Meltem Çiğdem; Çinar, Betül Çiçek; Pektaş, Alev; Çengel, Ebru Kültür; Aksoy, Songül

2016-11-17

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a common impairing neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in early childhood. Almost half of the children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also experience a variety of motor-related dysfunctions ranging from fine/gross motor control problems to difficulties in maintaining balance. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of distractors two different auditory distractors namely, relaxing music and white noise on upright balance performance in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We compared upright balance performance and the involvement of different sensory systems in the presence of auditory distractors between school-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (n=26) and typically developing controls (n=20). Neurocom SMART Balance Master Dynamic Posturography device was used for the sensory organization test. Sensory organization test was repeated three times for each participant in three different test environments. The balance scores in the silence environment were lower in the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder group but the differences were not statistically significant. In addition to lower balance scores the visual and vestibular ratios were also lower. Auditory distractors affected the general balance performance positively for both groups. More challenging conditions, using an unstable platform with distorted somatosensory signals were more affected. Relaxing music was more effective in the control group, and white noise was more effective in the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder group and the positive effects of white noise became more apparent in challenging conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating balance performance in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder under the effects of auditory distractors. Although more studies are needed, our results indicate that auditory distractors

The Role of Ankle Proprioception for Balance Control in relation to Sports Performance and Injury

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Jia; Waddington, Gordon; Adams, Roger; Liu, Yu

2015-01-01

Balance control improvement is one of the most important goals in sports and exercise. Better balance is strongly positively associated with enhanced athletic performance and negatively associated with lower limb sports injuries. Proprioception plays an essential role in balance control, and ankle proprioception is arguably the most important. This paper reviews ankle proprioception and explores synergies with balance control, specifically in a sporting context. Central processing of ankle proprioceptive information, along with other sensory information, enables integration for balance control. When assessing ankle proprioception, the most generalizable findings arise from methods that are ecologically valid, allow proprioceptive signals to be integrated with general vision in the central nervous system, and reflect the signal-in-noise nature of central processing. Ankle proprioceptive intervention concepts driven by such a central processing theory are further proposed and discussed for the improvement of balance control in sport. PMID:26583139

Efficient control of epidemics spreading on networks: balance between treatment and recovery.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katarzyna Oleś

Full Text Available We analyse two models describing disease transmission and control on regular and small-world networks. We use simulations to find a control strategy that minimizes the total cost of an outbreak, thus balancing the costs of disease against that of the preventive treatment. The models are similar in their epidemiological part, but differ in how the removed/recovered individuals are treated. The differences in models affect choice of the strategy only for very cheap treatment and slow spreading disease. However for the combinations of parameters that are important from the epidemiological perspective (high infectiousness and expensive treatment the models give similar results. Moreover, even where the choice of the strategy is different, the total cost spent on controlling the epidemic is very similar for both models.

Analysis of interference performance of tactical radio network

Science.gov (United States)

Nie, Hao; Cai, Xiaoxia; Chen, Hong

2017-08-01

Mobile Ad hoc network has a strong military background for its development as the core technology of the backbone network of US tactical Internet. And which tactical radio network, is the war in today's tactical use of the Internet more mature form of networking, mainly used in brigade and brigade following forces. This paper analyzes the typical protocol AODV in the tactical radio network, and then carries on the networking. By adding the interference device to the whole network, the battlefield environment is simulated, and then the throughput, delay and packet loss rate are analyzed, and the performance of the whole network and the single node before and after the interference is obtained.

Water balance estimation in high Alpine terrain by combining distributed modeling and a neural network approach (Berchtesgaden Alps, Germany

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Kraller

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The water balance in high Alpine regions is often characterized by significant variation of meteorological variables in space and time, a complex hydrogeological situation and steep gradients. The system is even more complex when the rock composition is dominated by soluble limestone, because unknown underground flow conditions and flow directions lead to unknown storage quantities. Reliable distributed modeling cannot be implemented by traditional approaches due to unknown storage processes at local and catchment scale. We present an artificial neural network extension of a distributed hydrological model (WaSiM-ETH that allows to account for subsurface water transfer in a karstic environment. The extension was developed for the Alpine catchment of the river "Berchtesgadener Ache" (Berchtesgaden Alps, Germany, which is characterized by extreme topography and calcareous rocks. The model assumes porous conditions and does not account for karstic environments, resulting in systematic mismatch of modeled and measured runoff in discharge curves at the outlet points of neighboring high alpine subbasins. Various precipitation interpolation methods did not allow to explain systematic mismatches, and unknown subsurface hydrological processes were concluded as the underlying reason. We introduce a new method that allows to describe the unknown subsurface boundary fluxes, and account for them in the hydrological model. This is achieved by an artificial neural network approach (ANN, where four input variables are taken to calculate the unknown subsurface storage conditions. This was first developed for the high Alpine subbasin Königsseer Ache to improve the monthly water balance. We explicitly derive the algebraic transfer function of an artificial neural net to calculate the missing boundary fluxes. The result of the ANN is then implemented in the groundwater module of the hydrological model as boundary flux, and considered during the consecutive model

Modeling the Effect of Bandwidth Allocation on Network Performance

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... The proposed model showed improved performance for CDMA networks, but further increase in the bandwidth did not benefit the network; (iii) A reliability measure such as the spectral efficiency is therefore useful to redeem the limitation in (ii). Keywords: Coverage Capacity, CDMA, Mobile Network, Network Throughput ...

The Interaction of Functional and Dysfunctional Emotions during Balance Beam Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Cottyn, Jorge; De Clercq, Dirk; Crombez, Geert; Lenoir, Matthieu

2012-01-01

The interaction between functional and dysfunctional emotions, as one of the major tenets of the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) model (Hanin, 2000), was studied in a sport specific setting. Fourteen female gymnasts performed three attempts of a compulsory balance beam routine at three different heights. Heart rate and self-report…

User-Location Aware Downlink Performance Analysis of LTE Networks

OpenAIRE

Olaifa, John Olorunfemi

2016-01-01

In order to evaluate the performance of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, system-level simulation with detailed focus on network related effects such as mobility, scheduling and interference management must be emphasized. Existing studies evaluate user throughput and dimension LTE networks usually assuming uniform distribution of users within the cell. These studies report average user throughputs over the cell and the 5th percentile throughputs as estimates of the performance of the users ...

APLIKASI ANALYTIC NETWORK PROCESS (ANP PADA PERANCANGAN SISTEM PENGUKURAN KINERJA (Studi Kasus pada PT. X

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iwan Vanany

2003-01-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses the application of Analytic Network Process (ANP to support the weighted of design performance measurement system with Balanced Scorecard method. During the time, the weighted uses method that disregarding interdependence between objectives strategy and Key Performance Indicator (KPI's. The method which often used in this weighted is Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP. In fact this condition does not express the concept of strategy map of Balanced Scorecard. Therefore is needed apply the other weighted method which attention to the interdependence between Key Performance Indicator (KPI. Application of the weighted with ANP method is conducted at one of the power company. This company represents result of restructuring of PT. PLN (Persero. The result of design performance measurement system of PT. X are objective strategy, Key Performance Indicator (KPI and strategy map, will be weighted by method of ANP. Further more Modeling of ANP based on strategy map. The result of application indicates that related of model of strategy map in Balanced Scorecard at PT. X is Feedback Network (hiernet with phenomenon of inner and dependence of outer dependence. The perspective on Balanced Scorecard is identically with cluster on ANP, while objective strategy and KPI are identically with sub-element and element. Result of weighted with ANP method shows the existence of culmination of weighted on financial perspective of Strategy Map at PT. X. Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia : Makalah ini membahas aplikasi Analytic Network Process (ANP untuk mendukung pembobotan pada perancangan sistem pengukuran kinerja dengan metode Balanced Scorecard. Selama ini, pembobotan yang ada menggunakan metode yang mengabaikan saling keterkaitan antar strategi objektif dengan Key Performance Indicator (KPI-KPI -nya. Metode yang sering digunakan didalam pembobotan ini adalah Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP. Kondisi ini sebenarnya tidak mencerminkan konsep Strategy Map

Assessing the implications of cellular network performance on mobile content access

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kaup, Fabian; Michelinakis, Foivos; Bui, Nicola

2016-01-01

Mobile applications such as VoIP, (live) gaming, or video streaming have diverse QoS requirements ranging from low delay to high throughput. The optimization of the network quality experienced by end-users requires detailed knowledge of the expected network performance. Also, the achieved service...... of cellular network measurements, focused on analyzing root causes of mobile network performance variability. Measurements conducted on a 4G cellular network in Germany show that management and configuration decisions have a substantial impact on the performance. Specifically, it is observed...

Balance Training Enhances Vestibular Function and Reduces Overactive Proprioceptive Feedback in Elderly

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabella K. Wiesmeier

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Postural control in elderly people is impaired by degradations of sensory, motor, and higher-level adaptive mechanisms. Here, we characterize the effects of a progressive balance training program on these postural control impairments using a brain network model based on system identification techniques.Methods and Material: We analyzed postural control of 35 healthy elderly subjects and compared findings to data from 35 healthy young volunteers. Eighteen elderly subjects performed a 10 week balance training conducted twice per week. Balance training was carried out in static and dynamic movement states, on support surfaces with different elastic compliances, under different visual conditions and motor tasks. Postural control was characterized by spontaneous sway and postural reactions to pseudorandom anterior-posterior tilts of the support surface. Data were interpreted using a parameter identification procedure based on a brain network model.Results: With balance training, the elderly subjects significantly reduced their overly large postural reactions and approximated those of younger subjects. Less significant differences between elderly and young subjects' postural control, namely larger spontaneous sway amplitudes, velocities, and frequencies, larger overall time delays and a weaker motor feedback compared to young subjects were not significantly affected by the balance training.Conclusion: Balance training reduced overactive proprioceptive feedback and restored vestibular orientation in elderly. Based on the assumption of a linear deterioration of postural control across the life span, the training effect can be extrapolated as a juvenescence of 10 years. This study points to a considerable benefit of a continuous balance training in elderly, even without any sensorimotor deficits.

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA of RUBBER UKM BASED ON COOPERATIVE USING BALANCED SCORECARD METHOD

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Dessy Iriani Putri

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Small and Medium Enterprises (UKM of Usaha Mandiri is the only UKM in Putri Hijau district, North Bengkulu that carries out its activities based on cooperative principles. The UKM was established in 2010 due to the rubber farmer’s concern about their future. In the last few years, the rubber price has declined, resulting in the decreasing performance of UKM Usaha Mandiri’s.  The objective of this research is to analyze the performance of UKM of Usaha Mandiri.  The method used is balanced scorecard (BSC and Focus Group Discussion (FGD to identify the UKM’s strategic aim and the BSC value. The result of the research shows that the performance of UKM of Usaha Mandiri   started to decline from 2013–2015.  The BSC score from 2011–2015 was 112.93 (excellent, 141.84 (excellent, 95.41 (excellent, 47.42 (average and 81.62 (very good.  The decline of the performance was due to the decline of natural rubber price.  The conclusion for the research is that in 2015 the performance of UKM of Usaha Mandiri   was categorized as very good (BSC method with the most contribution from growth and learning perspective.        Keywords : Balanced scorecard, BSC, cooperation, performance measurement, UKM

Evaluation of static and dynamic balance in elderly women performing aquatic exercise and gymnastics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Paula Almeida

2010-01-01

Full Text Available This study evaluated static and dynamic balance and related motor valences in elderly women who had been undergone gymnastics or aquatic exercise training for at least 6 months, three times a week. Thirty-one women performed water gymnastics (mean age: 69.32 ± 6.57 years and 28 gymnastics (65.57 ± 7.67 years. Height (cm, weight (kg and waist, hip and abdominal circumference (cm were measured and the body mass index (BMI and waist-hip ratio (WHR were calculated. Physical fitness was measured using the “sit and get up in 30 seconds” test (leg endurance and “8-foot up-and-go” test (dynamic balance, both proposed by Rikli and Jones (1999, and the “sit and reach” (flexibility and static balance tests described by Caromano (1998. Statistical analysis was performed using the Student t-test and Pearson’s correlation, with a level of significance of 0.05. No significant difference in the anthropometric measures (BMI and WHR was observed between groups. In the physical fitness tests, significant differences were only found in the “8-foot up-and-go” and “sit and get up” tests, with the gymnastics group presenting better results. No correlations within or between groups were observed regarding static and dynamic balance or motor valences. In conclusion, neither type of exercise was superior but the gymnastics group tended to show better results in terms of parameters such as agility, balance and flexibility.

Load Balancing Routing with Bounded Stretch

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen Siyuan

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Routing in wireless networks has been heavily studied in the last decade. Many routing protocols are based on classic shortest path algorithms. However, shortest path-based routing protocols suffer from uneven load distribution in the network, such as crowed center effect where the center nodes have more load than the nodes in the periphery. Aiming to balance the load, we propose a novel routing method, called Circular Sailing Routing (CSR, which can distribute the traffic more evenly in the network. The proposed method first maps the network onto a sphere via a simple stereographic projection, and then the route decision is made by a newly defined "circular distance" on the sphere instead of the Euclidean distance in the plane. We theoretically prove that for a network, the distance traveled by the packets using CSR is no more than a small constant factor of the minimum (the distance of the shortest path. We also extend CSR to a localized version, Localized CSR, by modifying greedy routing without any additional communication overhead. In addition, we investigate how to design CSR routing for 3D networks. For all proposed methods, we conduct extensive simulations to study their performances and compare them with global shortest path routing or greedy routing in 2D and 3D wireless networks.

The balanced performativity as strategic focus in educational psychotherapy and coaching. An application of Aristotle’s ethics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dræby, Anders

The presentation aims at presenting the idea of balanc ed performativity as a strategic tool and focus in educational psychotherapy and coaching. By revitalizing the Aristotelian idea of the balance d life in working with anxiety and stress management among students, it is possible to initiat e...... an existential learning process among some students, that allows for a more positive, mature and sustainable development of talents and potentials which may also be useful in their work life. The objective of this session is to introduce knowledg e of the idea of balanced performativity in the field...

Optical Performance Monitoring and Signal Optimization in Optical Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Martin Nordal

2006-01-01

The thesis studies performance monitoring for the next generation optical networks. The focus is on all-optical networks with bit-rates of 10 Gb/s or above. Next generation all-optical networks offer large challenges as the optical transmitted distance increases and the occurrence of electrical-optical......-electrical regeneration points decreases. This thesis evaluates the impact of signal degrading effects that are becoming of increasing concern in all-optical high-speed networks due to all-optical switching and higher bit-rates. Especially group-velocity-dispersion (GVD) and a number of nonlinear effects will require...... enhanced attention to avoid signal degradations. The requirements for optical performance monitoring features are discussed, and the thesis evaluates the advantages and necessity of increasing the level of performance monitoring parameters in the physical layer. In particular, methods for optical...

Statistical modelling of networked human-automation performance using working memory capacity.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmed, Nisar; de Visser, Ewart; Shaw, Tyler; Mohamed-Ameen, Amira; Campbell, Mark; Parasuraman, Raja

2014-01-01

This study examines the challenging problem of modelling the interaction between individual attentional limitations and decision-making performance in networked human-automation system tasks. Analysis of real experimental data from a task involving networked supervision of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles by human participants shows that both task load and network message quality affect performance, but that these effects are modulated by individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity. These insights were used to assess three statistical approaches for modelling and making predictions with real experimental networked supervisory performance data: classical linear regression, non-parametric Gaussian processes and probabilistic Bayesian networks. It is shown that each of these approaches can help designers of networked human-automated systems cope with various uncertainties in order to accommodate future users by linking expected operating conditions and performance from real experimental data to observable cognitive traits like WM capacity. Practitioner Summary: Working memory (WM) capacity helps account for inter-individual variability in operator performance in networked unmanned aerial vehicle supervisory tasks. This is useful for reliable performance prediction near experimental conditions via linear models; robust statistical prediction beyond experimental conditions via Gaussian process models and probabilistic inference about unknown task conditions/WM capacities via Bayesian network models.

Switching performance of OBS network model under prefetched real traffic

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Zhenhua; Xu, Du; Lei, Wen

2005-11-01

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) [1] is now widely considered as an efficient switching technique in building the next generation optical Internet .So it's very important to precisely evaluate the performance of the OBS network model. The performance of the OBS network model is variable in different condition, but the most important thing is that how it works under real traffic load. In the traditional simulation models, uniform traffics are usually generated by simulation software to imitate the data source of the edge node in the OBS network model, and through which the performance of the OBS network is evaluated. Unfortunately, without being simulated by real traffic, the traditional simulation models have several problems and their results are doubtable. To deal with this problem, we present a new simulation model for analysis and performance evaluation of the OBS network, which uses prefetched IP traffic to be data source of the OBS network model. The prefetched IP traffic can be considered as real IP source of the OBS edge node and the OBS network model has the same clock rate with a real OBS system. So it's easy to conclude that this model is closer to the real OBS system than the traditional ones. The simulation results also indicate that this model is more accurate to evaluate the performance of the OBS network system and the results of this model are closer to the actual situation.

Analyzing subsurface drain network performance in an agricultural monitoring site with a three-dimensional hydrological model

Science.gov (United States)

Nousiainen, Riikka; Warsta, Lassi; Turunen, Mika; Huitu, Hanna; Koivusalo, Harri; Pesonen, Liisa

2015-10-01

Effectiveness of a subsurface drainage system decreases with time, leading to a need to restore the drainage efficiency by installing new drain pipes in problem areas. The drainage performance of the resulting system varies spatially and complicates runoff and nutrient load generation within the fields. We presented a method to estimate the drainage performance of a heterogeneous subsurface drainage system by simulating the area with the three-dimensional hydrological FLUSH model. A GIS analysis was used to delineate the surface runoff contributing area in the field. We applied the method to reproduce the water balance and to investigate the effectiveness of a subsurface drainage network of a clayey field located in southern Finland. The subsurface drainage system was originally installed in the area in 1971 and the drainage efficiency was improved in 1995 and 2005 by installing new drains. FLUSH was calibrated against total runoff and drain discharge data from 2010 to 2011 and validated against total runoff in 2012. The model supported quantification of runoff fractions via the three installed drainage networks. Model realisations were produced to investigate the extent of the runoff contributing areas and the effect of the drainage parameters on subsurface drain discharge. The analysis showed that better model performance was achieved when the efficiency of the oldest drainage network (installed in 1971) was decreased. Our analysis method can reveal the drainage system performance but not the reason for the deterioration of the drainage performance. Tillage layer runoff from the field was originally computed by subtracting drain discharge from the total runoff. The drains installed in 1995 bypass the measurement system, which renders the tillage layer runoff calculation procedure invalid after 1995. Therefore, this article suggests use of a local correction coefficient based on the simulations for further research utilizing data from the study area.

Performance of five surface energy balance models for estimating daily evapotranspiration in high biomass sorghum

Science.gov (United States)

Wagle, Pradeep; Bhattarai, Nishan; Gowda, Prasanna H.; Kakani, Vijaya G.

2017-06-01

Robust evapotranspiration (ET) models are required to predict water usage in a variety of terrestrial ecosystems under different geographical and agrometeorological conditions. As a result, several remote sensing-based surface energy balance (SEB) models have been developed to estimate ET over large regions. However, comparison of the performance of several SEB models at the same site is limited. In addition, none of the SEB models have been evaluated for their ability to predict ET in rain-fed high biomass sorghum grown for biofuel production. In this paper, we evaluated the performance of five widely used single-source SEB models, namely Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL), Mapping ET with Internalized Calibration (METRIC), Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS), Simplified Surface Energy Balance Index (S-SEBI), and operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop), for estimating ET over a high biomass sorghum field during the 2012 and 2013 growing seasons. The predicted ET values were compared against eddy covariance (EC) measured ET (ETEC) for 19 cloud-free Landsat image. In general, S-SEBI, SEBAL, and SEBS performed reasonably well for the study period, while METRIC and SSEBop performed poorly. All SEB models substantially overestimated ET under extremely dry conditions as they underestimated sensible heat (H) and overestimated latent heat (LE) fluxes under dry conditions during the partitioning of available energy. METRIC, SEBAL, and SEBS overestimated LE regardless of wet or dry periods. Consequently, predicted seasonal cumulative ET by METRIC, SEBAL, and SEBS were higher than seasonal cumulative ETEC in both seasons. In contrast, S-SEBI and SSEBop substantially underestimated ET under too wet conditions, and predicted seasonal cumulative ET by S-SEBI and SSEBop were lower than seasonal cumulative ETEC in the relatively wetter 2013 growing season. Our results indicate the necessity of inclusion of soil moisture or plant water stress

High Performance Networks for High Impact Science

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Scott, Mary A.; Bair, Raymond A.

2003-02-13

This workshop was the first major activity in developing a strategic plan for high-performance networking in the Office of Science. Held August 13 through 15, 2002, it brought together a selection of end users, especially representing the emerging, high-visibility initiatives, and network visionaries to identify opportunities and begin defining the path forward.

SON for LTE-WLAN access network selection : design and performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Willemen, P.; Laselva, D.; Wang, Y.; Kovács, I.; Djapic, R.; Moerman, I.

2016-01-01

Mobile network operators (MNOs) are deploying carrier-grade Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) as an important complementary system to cellular networks. Access network selection (ANS) between cellular and WLAN is an essential component to improve network performance and user quality-of-service

A performance measurement using balanced scorecard and structural equation modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosha Makvandi

2014-02-01

Full Text Available During the past few years, balanced scorecard (BSC has been widely used as a promising method for performance measurement. BSC studies organizations in terms of four perspectives including customer, internal processes, learning and growth and financial figures. This paper presents a hybrid of BSC and structural equation modeling (SEM to measure the performance of an Iranian university in province of Alborz, Iran. The proposed study of this paper uses this conceptual method, designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some university students and professors. Using SEM technique, the survey analyzes the data and the results indicate that the university did poorly in terms of all four perspectives. The survey extracts necessary target improvement by presenting necessary attributes for performance improvement.

Cost Benefit Analysis of Utilising Mobile Nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mathur, Prateek; Nielsen, Rasmus Hjorth; Prasad, Neeli R.

2015-01-01

Mobile nodes have been found useful for improving performance of network parameters such as coverage, data latency and load balancing in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In spite of the benets which mobile nodes could oer when used in WSNs, they have been often stated as infeasible for use...

Copercolating Networks: An Approach for Realizing High-Performance Transparent Conductors using Multicomponent Nanostructured Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Das Suprem R.

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Although transparent conductive oxides such as indium tin oxide (ITO are widely employed as transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs for applications such as touch screens and displays, new nanostructured TCEs are of interest for future applications, including emerging transparent and flexible electronics. A number of twodimensional networks of nanostructured elements have been reported, including metallic nanowire networks consisting of silver nanowires, metallic carbon nanotubes (m-CNTs, copper nanowires or gold nanowires, and metallic mesh structures. In these single-component systems, it has generally been difficult to achieve sheet resistances that are comparable to ITO at a given broadband optical transparency. A relatively new third category of TCEs consisting of networks of 1D-1D and 1D-2D nanocomposites (such as silver nanowires and CNTs, silver nanowires and polycrystalline graphene, silver nanowires and reduced graphene oxide have demonstrated TCE performance comparable to, or better than, ITO. In such hybrid networks, copercolation between the two components can lead to relatively low sheet resistances at nanowire densities corresponding to high optical transmittance. This review provides an overview of reported hybrid networks, including a comparison of the performance regimes achievable with those of ITO and single-component nanostructured networks. The performance is compared to that expected from bulk thin films and analyzed in terms of the copercolation model. In addition, performance characteristics relevant for flexible and transparent applications are discussed. The new TCEs are promising, but significant work must be done to ensure earth abundance, stability, and reliability so that they can eventually replace traditional ITO-based transparent conductors.

Gender-specific influences of balance, speed, and power on agility performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Sekulic, Damir; Spasic, Miodrag; Mirkov, Dragan; Cavar, Mile; Sattler, Tine

2013-03-01

The quick change of direction (i.e., agility) is an important athletic ability in numerous sports. Because of the diverse and therefore hardly predictable manifestations of agility in sports, studies noted that the improvement in speed, power, and balance should result in an improvement of agility. However, there is evident lack of data regarding the influence of potential predictors on different agility manifestations. The aim of this study was to determine the gender-specific influence of speed, power, and balance on different agility tests. A total of 32 college-aged male athletes and 31 college-aged female athletes (age 20.02 ± 1.89 years) participated in this study. The subjects were mostly involved in team sports (soccer, team handball, basketball, and volleyball; 80% of men, and 75% of women), martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. Anthropometric variables consisted of body height, body weight, and the body mass index. Five agility tests were used: a t-test (T-TEST), zig-zag test, 20-yard shuttle test, agility test with a 180-degree turn, and forward-backward running agility test (FWDBWD). Other tests included 1 jumping ability power test (squat jump, SQJ), 2 balance tests to determine the overall stability index and an overall limit of stability score (both measured by Biodex Balance System), and 2 running speed tests using a straight sprint for 10 and 20 m (S10 and S20, respectively). A reliability analysis showed that all the agility tests were reliable. Multiple regression and correlation analysis found speed and power (among women), and balance (among men), as most significant predictors of agility. The highest Pearson's correlation in both genders is found between the results of the FWDBWD and S10M tests (0.77 and 0.81 for men and women, respectively; p Power, measured using the SQJ, is significantly (p balance measures were significantly related to the agility performance for men but not for women. In addition to demonstrating a known relationship

The performance analysis of linux networking - packet receiving

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wu, Wenji; Crawford, Matt; Bowden, Mark; /Fermilab

2006-11-01

The computing models for High-Energy Physics experiments are becoming ever more globally distributed and grid-based, both for technical reasons (e.g., to place computational and data resources near each other and the demand) and for strategic reasons (e.g., to leverage equipment investments). To support such computing models, the network and end systems, computing and storage, face unprecedented challenges. One of the biggest challenges is to transfer scientific data sets--now in the multi-petabyte (10{sup 15} bytes) range and expected to grow to exabytes within a decade--reliably and efficiently among facilities and computation centers scattered around the world. Both the network and end systems should be able to provide the capabilities to support high bandwidth, sustained, end-to-end data transmission. Recent trends in technology are showing that although the raw transmission speeds used in networks are increasing rapidly, the rate of advancement of microprocessor technology has slowed down. Therefore, network protocol-processing overheads have risen sharply in comparison with the time spent in packet transmission, resulting in degraded throughput for networked applications. More and more, it is the network end system, instead of the network, that is responsible for degraded performance of network applications. In this paper, the Linux system's packet receive process is studied from NIC to application. We develop a mathematical model to characterize the Linux packet receiving process. Key factors that affect Linux systems network performance are analyzed.

Balance and gait performance after maximal and submaximal endurance exercise in seniors: is there a higher fall-risk?

Science.gov (United States)

Donath, Lars; Zahner, Lukas; Roth, Ralf; Fricker, Livia; Cordes, Mareike; Hanssen, Henner; Schmidt-Trucksäss, Arno; Faude, Oliver

2013-03-01

Impaired balance and gait performance increase fall-risk in seniors. Acute effects of different exercise bouts on gait and balance were not yet addressed. Therefore, 19 healthy seniors (10 women, 9 men, age: 64.6 ± 3.2 years) were examined on 3 days. After exhaustive treadmill testing, participants randomly completed a 2-km treadmill walking test (76 ± 8 % VO(2max)) and a resting control condition. Standing balance performance (SBALP) was assessed by single limb-eyes opened (SLEO) and double limb-eyes closed (DLEC) stance. Gait parameters were collected at comfortable walking velocity. A condition × time interaction of center of pressure path length (COP(path)) was observed for both balance tasks (p fall-risk in seniors. Balance changes upon 2-km testing might be of minor relevance. Gait is not affected during single task walking at given velocities.

Performance measurement of administration services using balance scorecard and Kano model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abolfazl Danaei

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This paper performs a survey to measure the performance of an administration unit in Iran based on a popular technique of balance scorecard. The study also uses Kano model to prioritize various factors and to provide necessary recommendation to improve the performance of different units. The survey has indicated that while these offices do well in terms of financial figures as well as customer perspective, they perform poorly in terms of learning and growth. According to our survey, it is essential to use information technology in general service offices, properly. In addition, these administrative agencies need to use hardware and software packages, more efficiently and these two basic items have received much attraction.

Performance measurement of electricity suppliers using PROMETHEE and balance scorecard

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mona Osati

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Performance measurement in energy industry plays an important role on increasing the productivity. Electricity is also among the most essential components of energy in mega cities like Tehran. The lack of a good service in this city may result unpleasant consequences on most civilians who live in this city. This paper presents an empirical investigation to measure the performance of six major electricity contractors in city of Tehran, Iran. The study implements grey numbers to handle any uncertainty associated with numbers. The study has also adopted four main perspectives used in balanced scorecard as part of PROMETHEE method to rank different contractors.

Optimization of the integrated gas balance planning with PLANGAS; Planejamento integrado e otimizado da movimentacao do gas utilizando o PLANGAS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Iamashita, Edson K.; Iachan, Roberto; Justiniano, Luiz R.S.; Silva, Nelson de M. da; Chaves, Jose R. da C. [PETROBRAS, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

2004-07-01

In this paper we propose to explain PLANGAS system, developed by PETROBRAS in order to subsidize the natural gas balance integrated planning of Campos Basin. This system performs the natural gas balance forecasting of a complex pipeline network, with a great deal of platforms, and wide operation possibilities correlated to the large number of variables. The production increasing, equipment process, compressors and pipeline capacity, and even gas price variation are examples considered in gas balance planning. The PLANGAS uses an optimizing mathematical model with linear programming and a database that optimizes the integrated gas balance forecasting, maximizing earnings, considering all the network restrictions. PLANGAS has been in use since 1999, and in 2003, was improved with new advances. This improvement reduced the simulation time providing opportunity to a better result analysis, as well as, higher quality plans. (author)

Addressing the Influence of Hidden State on Wireless Network Optimizations using Performance Maps

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Højgaard-Hansen, Kim; Madsen, Tatiana Kozlova; Schwefel, Hans-Peter

2015-01-01

be used to optimize the use of the wireless net- work by predicting future network performance and scheduling the net- work communication for certain applications on mobile devices. However, other important factors influence the performance of the wireless communication such as changes in the propagation...... environment and resource sharing. In this work we extend the framework of performance maps for wireless networks by introducing network state as an abstraction for all other factors than location that influence the performance. Since network state might not always be directly observable the framework......Performance of wireless connectivity for network client devices is location dependent. It has been shown that it can be beneficial to collect network performance metrics along with location information to generate maps of the location dependent network performance. These performance maps can...

Modeling the energy performance of event-driven wireless sensor network by using static sink and mobile sink.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jiehui; Salim, Mariam B; Matsumoto, Mitsuji

2010-01-01

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) designed for mission-critical applications suffer from limited sensing capacities, particularly fast energy depletion. Regarding this, mobile sinks can be used to balance the energy consumption in WSNs, but the frequent location updates of the mobile sinks can lead to data collisions and rapid energy consumption for some specific sensors. This paper explores an optimal barrier coverage based sensor deployment for event driven WSNs where a dual-sink model was designed to evaluate the energy performance of not only static sensors, but Static Sink (SS) and Mobile Sinks (MSs) simultaneously, based on parameters such as sensor transmission range r and the velocity of the mobile sink v, etc. Moreover, a MS mobility model was developed to enable SS and MSs to effectively collaborate, while achieving spatiotemporal energy performance efficiency by using the knowledge of the cumulative density function (cdf), Poisson process and M/G/1 queue. The simulation results verified that the improved energy performance of the whole network was demonstrated clearly and our eDSA algorithm is more efficient than the static-sink model, reducing energy consumption approximately in half. Moreover, we demonstrate that our results are robust to realistic sensing models and also validate the correctness of our results through extensive simulations.

Modeling the Energy Performance of Event-Driven Wireless Sensor Network by Using Static Sink and Mobile Sink

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jiehui; Salim, Mariam B.; Matsumoto, Mitsuji

2010-01-01

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) designed for mission-critical applications suffer from limited sensing capacities, particularly fast energy depletion. Regarding this, mobile sinks can be used to balance the energy consumption in WSNs, but the frequent location updates of the mobile sinks can lead to data collisions and rapid energy consumption for some specific sensors. This paper explores an optimal barrier coverage based sensor deployment for event driven WSNs where a dual-sink model was designed to evaluate the energy performance of not only static sensors, but Static Sink (SS) and Mobile Sinks (MSs) simultaneously, based on parameters such as sensor transmission range r and the velocity of the mobile sink v, etc. Moreover, a MS mobility model was developed to enable SS and MSs to effectively collaborate, while achieving spatiotemporal energy performance efficiency by using the knowledge of the cumulative density function (cdf), Poisson process and M/G/1 queue. The simulation results verified that the improved energy performance of the whole network was demonstrated clearly and our eDSA algorithm is more efficient than the static-sink model, reducing energy consumption approximately in half. Moreover, we demonstrate that our results are robust to realistic sensing models and also validate the correctness of our results through extensive simulations. PMID:22163503

TCP Performance Enhancement for UMTS Access Network

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hu, Liang

2008-01-01

is between UMTS access network and Internet. The split proxy divides the bandwidth delay product into two parts, resulting in two TCP connections with smaller bandwidth delay products. Simulation results show, the split TCP proxy can significantly improve the TCP performance under high bit rate DCH channel......We aim at optimize the TCP performance over UMTS access network challenged by the large delay bandwidth product that is mainly caused by the latency from the link layer ARQ retransmissions and diversity technique at physical layer. We propose to place a split TCP proxy at GGSN nodes which...

Balanced Scorecard – Strategic Management Tool of Performance in Public Institutions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carmen Cretu

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Balanced Scorecard (BSC is used to achieve an operational strategic vision at all levels of the organization regarding issues related to performance, strategy, communication, resource allocation, decision-making and competitiveness. BSC was created to restrict the limits of traditional financial and management tools and ensure unity of vision and long-term action in an organization. The main advantage of the method consists in guiding managers and departments, human resources, technological and financial resources towards the strategy of the organization. Unfortunately BSC is mainly used in private companies, because high costs and lack of specialists pose a real obstacle in implementing this instrument in public institutions. Our arguments attempts to show that the Balanced Scorecard can be the most appropriate among all the management tools for the public sector.

Seismic performance evaluation of high natural frequency mechanical structure from the viewpoint of energy balance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Minagawa, Keisuke; Fujita, Satoshi; Endo, Rokuro; Amemiya, Mitsuhiko

2009-01-01

In this study, vibration characteristics of mechanical structure having high natural frequency are investigated from the viewpoint of energy balance. Mechanical structures having high natural frequency in a nuclear power plant are generally designed statically and elastically. However it has been reported that fracture of ordinary piping is produced not by momentary large load but by cumulative fatigue damage. Therefore it is very important to grasp seismic performance dynamically by considering cyclic load. This paper deals with an investigation regarding seismic performance evaluation of high natural frequency mechanical structure. The energy balance equation that is one of valid methods for structural calculation is applied through the investigation. The main feature of the energy balance equation is that it explains accumulated information of motion. Therefore the energy balance equation is adequate for the investigation of the influence of cumulative load such as seismic response. In this paper, vibration experiment and simulation using sinusoidal waves and artificial seismic waves were examined in order to investigate relationship between natural frequency of structure and energy. As a result, we found that input energy decreases with an increase in the natural frequency. (author)

Flexibility and Balancing in Active Distribution Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kordheili, Reza Ahmadi

. Chapter 4 presents the details of the analysis, as well as the details of the MV network. To generalize the analysis, a standard MV network has been used for the studies. The MV network is also an active network, i.e. it involves MV wind turbines and decentralized combined heat and power (DCHP). DCHP...... units play an important role in Danish power system, and they contribute to electricity production as well. Modeling of wind turbines is done considering real data of a Vestas wind turbine. For wind speed, a modified wind speed model has been used for wind turbines, considering the available wind...... measurement. Also, a detailed model of DCHP units has been used in this thesis. Details of wind turbine model, as well as details of DCHP are presented in the thesis. The third objective of the research is to include the LV and MV networks in frequency response of the power system. Considering the increasing...

Performance Analysis of Congestion Control Mechanism in Software Defined Network (SDN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rahman M. Z. A.

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In the near future, the traditional networks architecture will be difficult to be managed. Hence, Software Defined Network (SDN will be an alternative in the future of programmable networks to replace the conventional network architecture. The main idea of SDN architecture is to separate the forwarding plane and control plane of network system, where network operators can program packet forwarding behaviour to improve the network performance. Congestion control is important mechanism for network traffic to improve network capability and achieve high end Quality of Service (QoS. In this paper, extensive simulation is conducted to analyse the performance of SDN by implementing Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP under congested network. The simulation was conducted on Mininet by creating four different fanout and the result was analysed based on differences of matrix performance. As a result, the packet loss and throughput reduction were observed when number of fanout in the topology was increased. By using LLDP protocol, huge reduction in packet loss rate has been achieved while maximizing percentage packet delivery ratio.

The E-Balanced Scorecard (e-BSC) for Measuring Academic Staff Performance Excellence

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, May Leen; Hamid, Suraya; Ijab, Mohamad Taha; Soo, Hsaio Pei

2009-01-01

This research paper is a pilot study that investigated the suitability of adopting an automated balanced scorecard for managing and measuring the performance excellence of academic staffs in the higher education setting. A comprehensive study of related literature with requirements elicited from the target population in a selected premier…

Wireless ad hoc and sensor networks management, performance, and applications

CERN Document Server

He, Jing

2013-01-01

Although wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been employed across a wide range of applications, there are very few books that emphasize the algorithm description, performance analysis, and applications of network management techniques in WSNs. Filling this need, Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks: Management, Performance, and Applications summarizes not only traditional and classical network management techniques, but also state-of-the-art techniques in this area. The articles presented are expository, but scholarly in nature, including the appropriate history background, a review of current

Classification of Company Performance using Weighted Probabilistic Neural Network

Science.gov (United States)

Yasin, Hasbi; Waridi Basyiruddin Arifin, Adi; Warsito, Budi

2018-05-01

Classification of company performance can be judged by looking at its financial status, whether good or bad state. Classification of company performance can be achieved by some approach, either parametric or non-parametric. Neural Network is one of non-parametric methods. One of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models is Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN). PNN consists of four layers, i.e. input layer, pattern layer, addition layer, and output layer. The distance function used is the euclidean distance and each class share the same values as their weights. In this study used PNN that has been modified on the weighting process between the pattern layer and the addition layer by involving the calculation of the mahalanobis distance. This model is called the Weighted Probabilistic Neural Network (WPNN). The results show that the company's performance modeling with the WPNN model has a very high accuracy that reaches 100%.

Estimating cellular network performance during hurricanes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Booker, Graham; Torres, Jacob; Guikema, Seth; Sprintson, Alex; Brumbelow, Kelly

2010-01-01

Cellular networks serve a critical role during and immediately after a hurricane, allowing citizens to contact emergency services when land-line communication is lost and serving as a backup communication channel for emergency responders. However, due to their ubiquitous deployment and limited design for extreme loading events, basic network elements, such as cellular towers and antennas are prone to failures during adverse weather conditions such as hurricanes. Accordingly, a systematic and computationally feasible approach is required for assessing and improving the reliability of cellular networks during hurricanes. In this paper we develop a new multi-disciplinary approach to efficiently and accurately assess cellular network reliability during hurricanes. We show how the performance of a cellular network during and immediately after future hurricanes can be estimated based on a combination of hurricane wind field models, structural reliability analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and cellular network models and simulation tools. We then demonstrate the use of this approach for assessing the improvement in system reliability that can be achieved with discrete topological changes in the system. Our results suggest that adding redundancy, particularly through a mesh topology or through the addition of an optical fiber ring around the perimeter of the system can be an effective way to significantly increase the reliability of some cellular systems during hurricanes.

Performance Analysis of RF-FSO Multi-Hop Networks

KAUST Repository

Makki, Behrooz

2017-05-12

We study the performance of multi-hop networks composed of millimeter wave (MMW)-based radio frequency (RF) and free-space optical (FSO) links. The results are obtained in the cases with and without hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ). Taking the MMW characteristics of the RF links into account, we derive closed-form expressions for the network outage probability. We also evaluate the effect of various parameters such as power amplifiers efficiency, number of antennas as well as different coherence times of the RF and the FSO links on the system performance. Finally, we present mappings between the performance of RF- FSO multi-hop networks and the ones using only the RF- or the FSO-based communication, in the sense that with appropriate parameter settings the same outage probability is achieved in these setups. The results show the efficiency of the RF-FSO setups in different conditions. Moreover, the HARQ can effectively improve the outage probability/energy efficiency, and compensate the effect of hardware impairments in RF-FSO networks. For common parameter settings of the RF-FSO dual- hop networks, outage probability 10^{-4} and code rate 3 nats-per-channel-use, the implementation of HARQ with a maximum of 2 and 3 retransmissions reduces the required power, compared to the cases with no HARQ, by 13 and 17 dB, respectively.

Interpreting the need for initial support to perform tandem stance tests of balance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hile, E.S.; Brach, J.S.; Perera, S.; Wert, D.M.; VanSwearingen, J.M.; Studenski, S.A.

2012-01-01

BACKGROUND: Geriatric rehabilitation reimbursement increasingly requires documented deficits on standardized measures. Tandem stance performance can characterize balance, but protocols are not standardized. Objective The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of: (1) initial support to

Differences In Male Collegiate And Recreationally Trained Soccer Players On Balance, Agility, And Vertical Jump Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicole M. Sauls

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Objective: The purpose of this investigation was to determine the differences in collegiate and recreationally trained soccer players in sprint, vertical jump, and balance performance. Methods: Twenty-one soccer players, twelve Division II collegiate and nine recreationally trained volunteered to participate. Session one acted as a familiarization day, where the participants were familiarized with testing day protocols. During testing day, participants performed a dynamic warm-up, followed by balance measurements, three countermovement vertical jumps, and pro-agility shuttle test. Results: There were no significant (p>0.05 differences between groups in the all balance variables. Collegiate soccer players had a significantly (p0.05 differences in groups in all other variables. Conclusion: These results indicate that collegiate, Division II, soccer players had greater vertical jumping and sprinting velocities when compared to recreationally trained soccer players. These results may have been impacted by the lack of resistance training background in either of the two groups. With the addition of more time on a collegiate resistance training program, it is very likely the Division II athletes will see a significant increase in all balance, sprint, and vertical jump performance measures compared to recreationally trained players who receive little to no specialized resistance training.

Hospital network performance: a survey of hospital stakeholders' perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Bravi, F; Gibertoni, D; Marcon, A; Sicotte, C; Minvielle, E; Rucci, P; Angelastro, A; Carradori, T; Fantini, M P

2013-02-01

Hospital networks are an emerging organizational form designed to face the new challenges of public health systems. Although the benefits introduced by network models in terms of rationalization of resources are known, evidence about stakeholders' perspectives on hospital network performance from the literature is scanty. Using the Competing Values Framework of organizational effectiveness and its subsequent adaptation by Minvielle et al., we conducted in 2009 a survey in five hospitals of an Italian network for oncological care to examine and compare the views on hospital network performance of internal stakeholders (physicians, nurses and the administrative staff). 329 questionnaires exploring stakeholders' perspectives were completed, with a response rate of 65.8%. Using exploratory factor analysis of the 66 items of the questionnaire, we identified 4 factors, i.e. Centrality of relationships, Quality of care, Attractiveness/Reputation and Staff empowerment and Protection of workers' rights. 42 items were retained in the analysis. Factor scores proved to be high (mean score>8 on a 10-item scale), except for Attractiveness/Reputation (mean score 6.79), indicating that stakeholders attach a higher importance to relational and health care aspects. Comparison of factor scores among stakeholders did not reveal significant differences, suggesting a broadly shared view on hospital network performance. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Balancing of a rigid rotor using artificial neural network to predict the correction masses - DOI: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v31i2.3912

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fábio Lúcio Santos

2009-06-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with an analytical model of a rigid rotor supported by hydrodynamic journal bearings where the plane separation technique together with the Artificial Neural Network (ANN is used to predict the location and magnitude of the correction masses for balancing the rotor bearing system. The rotating system is modeled by applying the rigid shaft Stodola-Green model, in which the shaft gyroscopic moments and rotatory inertia are accounted for, in conjunction with the hydrodynamic cylindrical journal bearing model based on the classical Reynolds equation. A linearized perturbation procedure is employed to render the lubrication equations from the Reynolds equation, which allows predicting the eight linear force coefficients associated with the bearing direct and cross-coupled stiffness and damping coefficients. The results show that the methodology presented is efficient for balancing rotor systems. This paper gives a step further in the monitoring process, since Artificial Neural Network is normally used to predict, not to correct the mass unbalance. The procedure presented can be used in turbo machinery industry to balance rotating machinery that require continuous inspections. Some simulated results will be used in order to clarify the methodology presented.

Environmental investment and firm performance: A network approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bostian, Moriah; Färe, Rolf; Grosskopf, Shawna; Lundgren, Tommy

2016-01-01

This study examines the role of investment in environmental production practices for both environmental performance and energy efficiency over time. We employ a network DEA approach that links successive production technologies through intertemporal investment decisions with a period by period estimation. This allows us to estimate energy efficiency and environmental performance separately, as well as productivity change and its associated decompositions into efficiency change and technology change. Incorporating a network model also allows us to account for both short-term environmental management practices and long-term environmental investments in each of our productivity measures. We apply this framework to a panel of detailed plant-level production data for Swedish manufacturing firms covering the years 2002–2008. - Highlights: • We use a network DEA model to account for intertemporal environmental investment decisionsin measures of firm productivity. • We apply our network technology model to a panel of firms in Sweden's pulp and paperindustry for the years 2002 - 2008. • We model environmental investments and expenditures separately from other productionoriented inputs. • We find evidence of positive relationships between energy efficiency, environmental performance, and firm productivity.

Non-physical practice improves task performance in an unstable, perturbed environment: Motor imagery and observational balance training

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wolfgang eTaube

2014-12-01

Full Text Available For consciously performed motor tasks executed in a defined and constant way, both motor imagery (MI and action observation (AO have been shown to promote motor learning. It is not known whether these forms of non-physical training also improve motor actions when these actions have to be variably applied in an unstable and unpredictable environment. The present study therefore investigated the influence of MI balance training (MI_BT and a balance training combining AO and MI (AO+MI_BT on postural control of undisturbed and disturbed upright stance on unstable ground. As spinal reflex excitability after classical (i.e., physical balance training (BT is generally decreased, we tested whether non-physical BT also has an impact on spinal reflex circuits. Thirty-six participants were randomly allocated into an MI_BT group, in which participants imagined postural exercises, an AO+MI_BT group, in which participants observed videos of other people performing balance exercises and imagined being the person in the video, and a non-active control group (CON. Before and after 4 weeks of non-physical training, balance performance was assessed on a free-moving platform during stance without perturbation and during perturbed stance. Soleus H-reflexes were recorded during stable and unstable stance. The post measurement revealed significantly decreased postural sway during undisturbed and disturbed stance after both MI_BT and AO+MI_BT. Spinal reflex excitability remained unchanged. This is the first study showing that non-physical training (MI_BT and AO+MI_BT not only promotes motor learning of ‘rigid’ postural tasks but also improves performance of highly variable and unpredictable balance actions. These findings may be relevant to improve postural control and thus reduce the risk of falls in temporarily immobilized patients.

Motor intensive anti-gravity training improves performance in dynamic balance related tasks in persons with Parkinson's disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Malling, Anne Sofie Bøgh; Jensen, Bente Rona

2016-01-01

, the aim was to study the effect of motor intensive training performed in a safe anti-gravity environment using lower-body positive pressure (LBPP) technology on performance during dynamic balance related tasks. Thirteen male PDP went through an 8-week control period followed by 8 weeks of motor intensive...... antigravity training. Seventeen healthy males constituted a control group (CON). Performance during a five repetition sit-to-stand test (STS; sagittal plane) and a dynamic postural balance test (DPB; transversal plane) was evaluated. Effect measures were completion time, functional rates of force development...

A Performance Evaluation Model for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks and Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heng LUO

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Potential applications in areas such as military sites and disaster relief fields that are characterized by absence of prefixed infrastructure justify the development of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs and wireless sensor networks (WSNs. However, unfavorable wireless links and dynamic topology are still challenging, leading to the proposal of a collection of routing protocols for MANETs and WSNs. Nevertheless the performance of algorithms may vary with deployment scenario due to the application dependent philosophy behind algorithms. In this paper, the performance evaluation problem for MANETs and WSNs is investigated and a novel performance ranking model, termed AHP-SAW, is proposed. For simplicity but without loss of generality, the performance of two routing protocols DSDV and DSR are studies based on which ranking results are provided. Extensive simulations show that an overall 37.2 %, at most, gain may be achieved based on the AHP-SAW model.

Tactical Network Load Balancing in Multi-Gateway Wireless Sensor Networks

Science.gov (United States)

2013-12-01

communication technology ARPANET Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ASN autonomous sensor network CBR constant bit rate CDMA code...transmission energy NFC near field communication OV1 operational view xxii PA power amplifier RFC request for comment RFID radio frequency identification...fact that the integrated chip (IC) technology boom during the past 20+ years has miniaturized IC hardware while increasing computational capability

Performance Measurement Implementation Of Minimum Service Standards For Basic Education Based On The Balanced Scorecard

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Budiman Rusli

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Policies Minimum Service Standards for Basic Education has rolled out since 2002 by the minister in accordance with the Decree No. 129a U 2004 About Minimum Service Standards Education is continually updated and lastly Regulation of the Minister of Education and Culture No. 23 of 2013. All of the district government town should achieve the target of achieving 100 per cent in each of the indicators listed in the minimum service standards for the end of 2014. achievement pad on each indicator is just one measure of the performance of the local government department of education. Unfortunately from the announced target for 27 indicators that exist almost all regions including local governments do not reach Tangerang Regency. It is necessary for measuring the performance of local authorities particularly the education department. One performance measure modern enough that measurements can be done that The Balance Scorecard BSc. In the Balanced Scorecard is a management tool contemporare complete measure company performance not only of the financial perspective but also non-financial performance such as Customer Perspective Internal Business Processes and Learning and Growth. This approach is actually ideally suited for multinational companies because this approach requires very expensive but can be used to measure the profit performance of the company in addition to the combination of a long-term strategic and short-strategic. Balanced Scorecard it can also be done in measuring the performance of public sector services as well by modifying a few things so it can be used to measure the performance of the public sector including the Performance Measurement Minimum Service Standards for Basic Education.

Topological Effects and Performance Optimization in Transportation Continuous Network Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianjun Wu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Because of the limitation of budget, in the planning of road works, increased efforts should be made on links that are more critical to the whole traffic system. Therefore, it would be helpful to model and evaluate the vulnerability and reliability of the transportation network when the network design is processing. This paper proposes a bilevel transportation network design model, in which the upper level is to minimize the performance of the network under the given budgets, while the lower level is a typical user equilibrium assignment problem. A new solution approach based on particle swarm optimization (PSO method is presented. The topological effects on the performance of transportation networks are studied with the consideration of three typical networks, regular lattice, random graph, and small-world network. Numerical examples and simulations are presented to demonstrate the proposed model.

Expected Transmission Energy Route Metric for Wireless Mesh Senor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

YanLiang Jin

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Mesh is a network topology that achieves high throughput and stable intercommunication. With great potential, it is expected to be the key architecture of future networks. Wireless sensor networks are an active research area with numerous workshops and conferences arranged each year. The overall performance of a WSN highly depends on the energy consumption of the network. This paper designs a new routing metric for wireless mesh sensor networks. Results from simulation experiments reveal that the new metric algorithm improves the energy balance of the whole network and extends the lifetime of wireless mesh sensor networks (WMSNs.

The Effects of Uniquely-Processed Titanium on Balance and Walking Performance in Healthy Older Adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Melissa J. Black

2018-06-01

Full Text Available The increased risk of falls associated with advancing age has increased demand for methods to improve balance and mobility. The primary purpose of the study was to determine whether wearing Aqua Titan-treated stockings could improve balance and walking performance in an older population; secondary was to elucidate the mechanisms. In a randomized, double-blind crossover, 16 healthy older adults (age, 67.9 ± 4.2 years; BMI, 24.8 ± 3.1 kg/m2 performed two 4-day trials composed of baseline measures and fatiguing exercise on Day 1, with recovery measures at 14, 38 and 62 h post-exercise, wearing Aqua Titan and control stockings. Balance, walking performance, triceps surae stretch reflex, ankle range of motion and gastrocnemius muscle microvascular perfusion, blood flow and oxygen consumption were measured at baseline and during recovery. Aqua Titan had no effect on the microvascular parameters, but increased total ankle range of motion at 38 h (2.4°; 95% CI ± 1.8° and 62 h (2.7°; ±1.7°, contributed to by increases in dorsiflexion and plantar flexion. There was decreasing persistence in the medial-lateral center of pressure movement at 38 h (q = 0, −0.0635 ± 0.0455, compared to control stockings. Aqua Titan garments hold potential for improving balance and mobility in older adults in the days following a bout of fatiguing exercise. The proposed mechanisms associated with enhanced sensory feedback require further exploration.

Performance evaluation of packet video transfer over local area networks

OpenAIRE

Lu, Jie

1993-01-01

This research investigates the implementation and performance of packet video transfer over local area networks. A network architecture is defined for packet video such that most of the processing is performed by the higher layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model, while the lower layers provide real-time services. Implementation methods are discussed for coding schemes, including data compression, the network interface unit, and the underlying local are...

Materials balance area Custodian Performance Evaluation Program at PNL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dickman, D.A.

1991-07-01

The material balance area (MBA) custodian has primary responsibility for control and accountability of nuclear material within an MBA. In this role, the custodian operates as an extension of the facility material control and accountability (MC ampersand A) organization. To effectively meet administrative requirements and protection needs, the custodian must be fully trained in all aspects of MC ampersand A related to the MBA, and custodian performance must be periodically evaluated. DOE Policy requires that each facility provide for a program which assures that each facility provide for a program which assures that personnel performing MC ampersand A functions are (1) trained and/or qualified to perform their duties and responsibilities and (2) knowledgeable of requirements and procedures related to their functions. The MBA Custodian Performance Evaluation Program at PNL uses a variety of assessment techniques to meet this goal, including internal and independent MBA audits, periodic custodian testing, conduct of limited scope performance tests, daily monitoring of MC ampersand A documentation, and reviewing custodian performance during physical inventories. The data collected from these sources is analyzed and incorporated into an annual custodian performance evaluation document, given to each custodian and line management. Development of this program has resulted in significantly improved custodian performance and a marked decrease in finding and observations identified during MBA audits

A Mathematical Model to Improve the Performance of Logistics Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Izman Herdiansyah

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The role of logistics nowadays is expanding from just providing transportation and warehousing to offering total integrated logistics. To remain competitive in the global market environment, business enterprises need to improve their logistics operations performance. The improvement will be achieved when we can provide a comprehensive analysis and optimize its network performances. In this paper, a mixed integer linier model for optimizing logistics network performance is developed. It provides a single-product multi-period multi-facilities model, as well as the multi-product concept. The problem is modeled in form of a network flow problem with the main objective to minimize total logistics cost. The problem can be solved using commercial linear programming package like CPLEX or LINDO. Even in small case, the solver in Excel may also be used to solve such model.Keywords: logistics network, integrated model, mathematical programming, network optimization

Intelligent Cooperative MAC Protocol for Balancing Energy Consumption

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, S.; Liu, K.; Huang, B.; Liu, F.

To extend the lifetime of wireless sensor networks, we proposed an intelligent balanced energy consumption cooperative MAC protocol (IBEC-CMAC) based on the multi-node cooperative transmission model. The protocol has priority to access high-quality channels for reducing energy consumption of each transmission. It can also balance the energy consumption among cooperative nodes by using high residual energy nodes instead of excessively consuming some node's energy. Simulation results show that IBEC-CMAC can obtain longer network lifetime and higher energy utilization than direct transmission.

Balancing Absorptive Capacity and Inbound Open Innovation for Sustained Innovative Performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bongsun, Kim; Kim, Eonsoo; Foss, Nicolai Juul

2016-01-01

How can a firm develop new ideas and turn them into profitable innovations on a sustained basis? We address this fundamental issue in a novel way by developing an integrative framework of absorptive capacity (AC) and inbound open innovation that is rooted in the attention-based view of the firm. We...... specifically address why a balance between open and closed innovation is important from the perspective of absorptive capacity, and show how it may be brought about. Pursuing either open or closed inbound innovation alone may result in an imbalance between potential AC and realized AC as well as inward......-looking AC and outward-looking AC, which will hinder innovative performance.We argue that practicing open and closed inbound innovation repeatedly and alternately by switching organizational attentions, and thus developing the associated AC, can facilitate balancing absorptive capacity and lead to innovative...

Evaluation of Techniques to Detect Significant Network Performance Problems using End-to-End Active Network Measurements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cottrell, R.Les; Logg, Connie; Chhaparia, Mahesh; /SLAC; Grigoriev, Maxim; /Fermilab; Haro, Felipe; /Chile U., Catolica; Nazir, Fawad; /NUST, Rawalpindi; Sandford, Mark

2006-01-25

End-to-End fault and performance problems detection in wide area production networks is becoming increasingly hard as the complexity of the paths, the diversity of the performance, and dependency on the network increase. Several monitoring infrastructures are built to monitor different network metrics and collect monitoring information from thousands of hosts around the globe. Typically there are hundreds to thousands of time-series plots of network metrics which need to be looked at to identify network performance problems or anomalous variations in the traffic. Furthermore, most commercial products rely on a comparison with user configured static thresholds and often require access to SNMP-MIB information, to which a typical end-user does not usually have access. In our paper we propose new techniques to detect network performance problems proactively in close to realtime and we do not rely on static thresholds and SNMP-MIB information. We describe and compare the use of several different algorithms that we have implemented to detect persistent network problems using anomalous variations analysis in real end-to-end Internet performance measurements. We also provide methods and/or guidance for how to set the user settable parameters. The measurements are based on active probes running on 40 production network paths with bottlenecks varying from 0.5Mbits/s to 1000Mbit/s. For well behaved data (no missed measurements and no very large outliers) with small seasonal changes most algorithms identify similar events. We compare the algorithms' robustness with respect to false positives and missed events especially when there are large seasonal effects in the data. Our proposed techniques cover a wide variety of network paths and traffic patterns. We also discuss the applicability of the algorithms in terms of their intuitiveness, their speed of execution as implemented, and areas of applicability. Our encouraging results compare and evaluate the accuracy of our

Balance Performance in Irradiated Survivors of Nasopharyngeal Cancer with and without Tai Chi Qigong Training

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shirley S. M. Fong

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This cross-sectional exploratory study aimed to compare the one-leg-stance time and the six-minute walk distance among TC Qigong-trained NPC survivors, untrained NPC survivors, and healthy individuals. Twenty-five survivors of NPC with TC Qigong experience, 27 survivors of NPC without TC Qigong experience, and 68 healthy individuals formed the NPC-TC Qigong group, NPC-control group, and healthy-control group, respectively. The one-leg-stance (OLS timed test was conducted to assess the single-leg standing balance performance of the participants in four conditions: (1 standing on a stable surface with eyes open, (2 standing on a compliant surface with eyes open, (3 standing on a stable surface with eyes closed, and (4 standing on a compliant surface with eyes closed. The six-minute walk test (6MWT was used to determine the functional balance performance of the participants. Results showed that the NPC-control group had a shorter OLS time in all of the visual and supporting surface conditions than the healthy control group (P0.05. TC Qigong may be a rehabilitation exercise that improves somatosensory function and OLS balance performance among survivors of NPC.

Use of communication architecture test bed to evaluate data network performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clapp, N.E. Jr.; Swail, B.K.; Naser, J.A.

1994-01-01

Local area networks (LANs) are becoming more prevalent in nuclear power plants. Traditionally, LANs were only used as information highways, providing office automation services. LANs are now being used as data highways for applications in plant data acquisition and control systems. A communication architecture test bed, which contains network simulators, is needed to allow network performance studies and to resolve design issues prior to equipment purchase. Two levels of granularity of simulation are needed to provide the dynamic information about network performance. A coarse-grain simulator is used to estimate the dynamic performance of the network due to major resources such as workstations, gateways, and data acquisition systems. A fine-grain simulator allows a greater level of detail about the underlying network protocol and resources to be simulated. The combination of coarse-grain and fine-grain simulation packages provides the network designer with the required tools to thoroughly understand the behavior of the modeled network. This paper describes the development of a communication architecture test bed using commercial network simulation packages. Network simulators allow the resolution of major design issues in software without the expense of purchasing costly hardware components

Optimisation of Software-Defined Networks Performance Using a Hybrid Intelligent System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ann Sabih

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a novel intelligent technique that has been designed to optimise the performance of Software Defined Networks (SDN. The proposed hybrid intelligent system has employed integration of intelligence-based optimisation approaches with the artificial neural network. These heuristic optimisation methods include Genetic Algorithms (GA and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO. These methods were utilised separately in order to select the best inputs to maximise SDN performance. In order to identify SDN behaviour, the neural network model is trained and applied. The maximal optimisation approach has been identified using an analytical approach that considered SDN performance and the computational time as objective functions. Initially, the general model of the neural network was tested with unseen data before implementing the model using GA and PSO to determine the optimal performance of SDN. The results showed that the SDN represented by Artificial Neural Network ANN, and optmised by PSO, generated a better configuration with regards to computational efficiency and performance index.

The Effects of Short-Term Ski Trainings on Dynamic Balance Performance and Vertical Jump in Adolescents

Science.gov (United States)

Camliguney, Asiye Filiz

2013-01-01

Skiing is a sport where balance and strength are critical and which can be practiced actively especially from early years to old age. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of a 5-day training of skiing skills on dynamic balance performance and development of vertical jump strength in adolescents. Sixteen adolescent volunteers who do…

Decentralized SINR Balancing in Cognitive Radio Networks

KAUST Repository

Dhifallah, Oussama Najeeb; Dahrouj, Hayssam; Al-Naffouri, Tareq Y.; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2016-01-01

and primary transmitters can transmit simultaneously their data over the same frequency bands, so as to achieve a high system spectrum efficiency. The paper considers the downlink balancing problem of maximizing the minimum signal-to-interference-plus noise

Using the balanced scorecard to measure Chinese and Japanese hospital performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Xiao-yun; Yamauchi, Kazunobu; Kato, Ken; Nishimura, Akio; Ito, Katuski

2006-01-01

The objective of the paper is to confirm the feasibility and value of using the balanced scorecard (BSC) to measure performance in two hospitals in different countries. One hospital from China and another from Japan were chosen and key indicators were selected according to the BSC framework. A comparative hospital performance measurement model was set up using the BSC framework to comprehensively compare hospital performance in two countries. The BSC was found to be effective for underlining existing problems and identifying opportunities for improvements. The BSC also revealed the hospitals' contribution to performance improvement of each country's total health system. Hospital performance comparisons between countries using the BSC depend on the selection of feasible and appropriate key performance indicators, which is occasionally limited by data collection problems. The first use of the BSC to compare hospital performance between China and Japan shows benefits that not only suggests performance improvements in individual hospitals but also reveals effective health factors allowing implementation of valid national health policies.

Evaluation of high-performance network technologies for ITER

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zagar, K.; Hunt, S.; Kolaric, P.; Sabjan, R.; Zagar, A.; Dedic, J.

2010-01-01

For the fast feedback plasma controllers, ITER's Control, Data Access and Communication system (CODAC) will need to provide a mechanism for hard real-time communication between its distributed nodes. In particular, the ITER CODAC team identified four types of high-performance communication applications. Synchronous Databus Network (SDN) is to provide an ability to distribute parameters of plasma (estimated to about 5000 double-valued signals) across the system to allow for 1 ms control cycles. Event Distribution Network (EDN) and Time Communication Network (TCN) are to allow synchronization of node I/O operations to 10 ns. Finally, the Audio-Video Network (AVN) is to provide sufficient bandwidth for streaming of surveillance and diagnostics video at a high resolution (1024 x 1024) and frame rate (30 Hz). In this article, we present some combinations of common-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies that allow the above requirements to be met. Also, we present the performances achieved in a practical (though small scale) technology demonstrator, which involved a real-time Linux operating running on National Instruments' PXI platform, UDP communication implemented directly atop the Ethernet network adapter, CISCO switches, Micro Research Finland's timing and event solution, and GigE audio-video streaming.

GTRF: a game theory approach for regulating node behavior in real-time wireless sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Chi; Wu, Guowei; Pirozmand, Poria

2015-06-04

The selfish behaviors of nodes (or selfish nodes) cause packet loss, network congestion or even void regions in real-time wireless sensor networks, which greatly decrease the network performance. Previous methods have focused on detecting selfish nodes or avoiding selfish behavior, but little attention has been paid to regulating selfish behavior. In this paper, a Game Theory-based Real-time & Fault-tolerant (GTRF) routing protocol is proposed. GTRF is composed of two stages. In the first stage, a game theory model named VA is developed to regulate nodes' behaviors and meanwhile balance energy cost. In the second stage, a jumping transmission method is adopted, which ensures that real-time packets can be successfully delivered to the sink before a specific deadline. We prove that GTRF theoretically meets real-time requirements with low energy cost. Finally, extensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the performance of our scheme. Simulation results show that GTRF not only balances the energy cost of the network, but also prolongs network lifetime.

An Analysis of Network and Sensor Performance Within IEEE 802.X Wireless MESH Networks in the Tactical Network Topology (TNT)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Davis, Joseph A., Sr

2005-01-01

.... Specifically, this thesis will attempt establish the foundation for the development of wireless MESH "network health" models by examining the performance of sensors operating within a MESH network...

A Step towards Developing a Sustainability Performance Measure within Industrial Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samaneh Shokravi

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Despite the plethora of literature in sustainability and supply chain management in the recent years, a quantitative tool that measures the sustainability performance of an industrial supply network, considering the uncertainties of existing data, is hard to find. This conceptual paper is aimed at establishing a quantitative measure for the sustainability performance of industrial supply networks that considers aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in its environmental performance evaluation. The measure is built upon economic, environmental and social performance evaluation models. These models address a number of shortcomings in the literature, such as incomplete and inaccurate calculation of environmental impacts, as well as the disregard for aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in the input data and, more importantly, the scarce number of quantitative social sustainability measures. Dyadic interactions are chosen for the network, while the network members have a revenue-sharing relationship. This relationship promotes sharing of the required information for the use of the proposed model. This measure provides an approach to quantify the environmental, social and economic sustainability performances of a supply network. Moreover, as this measure is not specifically designed for an industrial sector, it can be employed over an evolving and diverse industrial network.

High Performance Networks From Supercomputing to Cloud Computing

CERN Document Server

Abts, Dennis

2011-01-01

Datacenter networks provide the communication substrate for large parallel computer systems that form the ecosystem for high performance computing (HPC) systems and modern Internet applications. The design of new datacenter networks is motivated by an array of applications ranging from communication intensive climatology, complex material simulations and molecular dynamics to such Internet applications as Web search, language translation, collaborative Internet applications, streaming video and voice-over-IP. For both Supercomputing and Cloud Computing the network enables distributed applicati

Breaking the excitation-inhibition balance makes the cortical network’s space-time dynamics distinguish simple visual scenes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Roland, Per E.; Bonde, Lars H.; Forsberg, Lars E.

2017-01-01

Brain dynamics are often taken to be temporal dynamics of spiking and membrane potentials in a balanced network. Almost all evidence for a balanced network comes from recordings of cell bodies of few single neurons, neglecting more than 99% of the cortical network. We examined the space......-time dynamics of excitation and inhibition simultaneously in dendrites and axons over four visual areas of ferrets exposed to visual scenes with stationary and moving objects. The visual stimuli broke the tight balance between excitation and inhibition such that the network exhibited longer episodes of net...... excitation subsequently balanced by net inhibition, in contrast to a balanced network. Locally in all four areas the amount of net inhibition matched the amount of net excitation with a delay of 125 ms. The space-time dynamics of excitation-inhibition evolved to reduce the complexity of neuron interactions...

The Development of 1Balance: A Connected Medical Device for Measuring Human Balance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heikki Sjöman

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Prototyping (iterative loops of design–build–test is a proven method of efficiently developing new products. Developing products not only quickly, but that are also fit for purpose, implies engaging the end users and iterating the technology at hand. However, there is currently little research on how engineering design can approach developing connected devices. The purpose of this paper is to distinguish and discuss design approaches that are suitable for connected devices. Internet of Things devices consist of both the physical products themselves and the data that is coming out of the products, which we define as the external and internal data, respectively. They both can be prototyped separately, but since the data acquired can influence the design of the device and vice versa, we propose to link these two together in the product development process. This issue becomes more apparent when designing networks of sensors, e.g., for complex artificial intelligence (AI databases. We explain the principle by describing the development of 1Balance through six different prototypes for human balance measurement. Technologically quantifying balance is an underused approach for objectively evaluating the state of a human’s performance. The authors have developed a mobile application for monitoring balance as a physiological signal (amount of sway via a compact wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU sensor strapped to the body of the subject for the duration of the measurement. We describe the design process for developing this connected medical device, as well as how the acquired data was used to improve the design of the product. In conclusion, we propose conceptually connecting the external and internal data prototyping loops.

A Lossless Switch for Data Acquisition Networks

CERN Document Server

Jereczek, Grzegorz Edmund; The ATLAS collaboration

2015-01-01

The recent trends in software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) are boosting the advance of software-based packet processing and forwarding on commodity servers. Although performance has traditionally been the challenge of this approach, this situation changes with modern server platforms. High performance load balancers, proxies, virtual switches and other network functions can be now implemented in software and not limited to specialized commercial hardware, thus reducing cost and increasing the flexibility. In this paper we design a lossless software-based switch for high bandwidth data acquisition (DAQ) networks, using the ATLAS experiment at CERN as a case study. We prove that it can effectively solve the incast pathology arising from the many-to-one communication pattern present in DAQ networks by providing extremely high buffering capabilities. We evaluate this on a commodity server equipped with twelve 10 Gbps Ethernet interfaces providing a total bandwidth of 120 Gbps...

Sport-specific balance.

Science.gov (United States)

Zemková, Erika

2014-05-01

This review includes the latest findings based on experimental studies addressing sport-specific balance, an area of research that has grown dramatically in recent years. The main objectives of this work were to investigate the postural sway response to different forms of exercise under laboratory and sport-specific conditions, to examine how this effect can vary with expertise, and to provide examples of the association of impaired balance with sport performance and/or increasing risk of injury. In doing so, sports where body balance is one of the limiting factors of performance were analyzed. While there are no significant differences in postural stability between athletes of different specializations and physically active individuals during standing in a standard upright position (e.g., bipedal stance), they have a better ability to maintain balance in specific conditions (e.g., while standing on a narrow area of support). Differences in magnitude of balance impairment after specific exercises (rebound jumps, repeated rotations, etc.) and mainly in speed of its readjustment to baseline are also observed. Besides some evidence on an association of greater postural sway with the increasing risk of injuries, there are many myths related to the negative influence of impaired balance on sport performance. Though this may be true for shooting or archery, findings have shown that in many other sports, highly skilled athletes are able to perform successfully in spite of increased postural sway. These findings may contribute to better understanding of the postural control system under various performance requirements. It may provide useful knowledge for designing training programs for specific sports.

Integrated healthcare networks' performance: a growth curve modeling approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Thomas T H; Wang, Bill B L

2003-05-01

This study examines the effects of integration on the performance ratings of the top 100 integrated healthcare networks (IHNs) in the United States. A strategic-contingency theory is used to identify the relationship of IHNs' performance to their structural and operational characteristics and integration strategies. To create a database for the panel study, the top 100 IHNs selected by the SMG Marketing Group in 1998 were followed up in 1999 and 2000. The data were merged with the Dorenfest data on information system integration. A growth curve model was developed and validated by the Mplus statistical program. Factors influencing the top 100 IHNs' performance in 1998 and their subsequent rankings in the consecutive years were analyzed. IHNs' initial performance scores were positively influenced by network size, number of affiliated physicians and profit margin, and were negatively associated with average length of stay and technical efficiency. The continuing high performance, judged by maintaining higher performance scores, tended to be enhanced by the use of more managerial or executive decision-support systems. Future studies should include time-varying operational indicators to serve as predictors of network performance.

Electric power balance sheet 2013

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2014-01-01

The mission of RTE, the French electricity Transportation grid, a public service assignment, is to balance the electricity supply and demand in real time. This report presents RTE's technical results for the year 2013: stabilisation of the electricity consumption in France, high level of hydropower generation, fast evolution of the European power network, electricity markets in a transition situation, adaptation of RTE's network to the evolutions of the energy system

I/O load balancing for big data HPC applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Paul, Arnab K. [Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Goyal, Arpit [Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Wang, Feiyi [ORNL; Oral, H Sarp [ORNL; Butt, Ali R. [Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA; Brim, Michael J. [ORNL; Srinivasa, Sangeetha B. [Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

2018-01-01

High Performance Computing (HPC) big data problems require efficient distributed storage systems. However, at scale, such storage systems often experience load imbalance and resource contention due to two factors: the bursty nature of scientific application I/O; and the complex I/O path that is without centralized arbitration and control. For example, the extant Lustre parallel file system-that supports many HPC centers-comprises numerous components connected via custom network topologies, and serves varying demands of a large number of users and applications. Consequently, some storage servers can be more loaded than others, which creates bottlenecks and reduces overall application I/O performance. Existing solutions typically focus on per application load balancing, and thus are not as effective given their lack of a global view of the system. In this paper, we propose a data-driven approach to load balance the I/O servers at scale, targeted at Lustre deployments. To this end, we design a global mapper on Lustre Metadata Server, which gathers runtime statistics from key storage components on the I/O path, and applies Markov chain modeling and a minimum-cost maximum-flow algorithm to decide where data should be placed. Evaluation using a realistic system simulator and a real setup shows that our approach yields better load balancing, which in turn can improve end-to-end performance.

Modeling acquaintance networks based on balance theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vukašinović Vida

2014-09-01

Full Text Available An acquaintance network is a social structure made up of a set of actors and the ties between them. These ties change dynamically as a consequence of incessant interactions between the actors. In this paper we introduce a social network model called the Interaction-Based (IB model that involves well-known sociological principles. The connections between the actors and the strength of the connections are influenced by the continuous positive and negative interactions between the actors and, vice versa, the future interactions are more likely to happen between the actors that are connected with stronger ties. The model is also inspired by the social behavior of animal species, particularly that of ants in their colony. A model evaluation showed that the IB model turned out to be sparse. The model has a small diameter and an average path length that grows in proportion to the logarithm of the number of vertices. The clustering coefficient is relatively high, and its value stabilizes in larger networks. The degree distributions are slightly right-skewed. In the mature phase of the IB model, i.e., when the number of edges does not change significantly, most of the network properties do not change significantly either. The IB model was found to be the best of all the compared models in simulating the e-mail URV (University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona network because the properties of the IB model more closely matched those of the e-mail URV network than the other models

On hybrid cooperation in underlay cognitive radio networks

KAUST Repository

Mahmood, Nurul Huda

2013-09-01

Cooperative communication is a promising strategy to enhance the performance of a communication network as it helps to improve the coverage area and the outage performance. However, such enhancement comes at the expense of increased resource utilization, which is undesirable; more so in the case of opportunistic wireless systems such as cognitive radio networks. In order to balance the performance gains from cooperative communication against the possible over-utilization of resources, we propose and analyze an adaptive-cooperation technique for underlay cognitive radio networks, termed as hybrid-cooperation. Under the proposed cooperation scheme, secondary users in a cognitive radio network cooperate adaptively to enhance the spectral efficiency and the error performance of the network. The bit error rate, the spectral efficiency and the outage performance of the network under the proposed hybrid cooperation scheme with amplify-and-forward relaying are analyzed in this paper, and compared against conventional cooperation technique. Findings of the analytical performance analyses are further validated numerically through selected computer-based Monte-Carlo simulations. The proposed scheme is found to achieve significantly better performance in terms of the spectral efficiency and the bit error rate, compared to the conventional amplify-and-forward cooperation scheme. © 2013 IEEE.

Topology design and performance analysis of an integrated communication network

Science.gov (United States)

Li, V. O. K.; Lam, Y. F.; Hou, T. C.; Yuen, J. H.

1985-01-01

A research study on the topology design and performance analysis for the Space Station Information System (SSIS) network is conducted. It is begun with a survey of existing research efforts in network topology design. Then a new approach for topology design is presented. It uses an efficient algorithm to generate candidate network designs (consisting of subsets of the set of all network components) in increasing order of their total costs, and checks each design to see if it forms an acceptable network. This technique gives the true cost-optimal network, and is particularly useful when the network has many constraints and not too many components. The algorithm for generating subsets is described in detail, and various aspects of the overall design procedure are discussed. Two more efficient versions of this algorithm (applicable in specific situations) are also given. Next, two important aspects of network performance analysis: network reliability and message delays are discussed. A new model is introduced to study the reliability of a network with dependent failures. For message delays, a collection of formulas from existing research results is given to compute or estimate the delays of messages in a communication network without making the independence assumption. The design algorithm coded in PASCAL is included as an appendix.

ANALISIS PENGARUH KONFIGURASI EIGRP EQUAL DAN UNEQUAL COST LOAD BALANCING TERHADAP KINERJA ROUTER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dian Bagus Saptonugroho

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Routing protocol is tasked with finding the best route to send the packet. Assessed using the metric. If there is more than one route with the same metric value, Routing Information Path (RIP, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF, and Enhanched Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP support equal cost load balancing to send packets to the destination. If there is more than one route with a different metric values, EIGRP can do unequal cost load balancing. Research needs to be conducted to determine the effect of the configuration of EIGRP equal and unequal cost load balancing on the performance of the router which can be used as a proof-of-concept testing that is part of the project design document on a network. Research networks using EIGRP as the routing protocol. After the equal and unequal load balancing is enabled by configuring the variance, CEF, per-destination load balancing, per-packet load balancing, or traffic sharing and analyzing its effect on the neighbor table, topology table, routing table, the data transmission, survivability, convergence, throughput, and utilization. This study used an emulator GNS3 as Cisco 2691 Router with Cisco IOS version 12:24 (25 c and advanced enterprise-adventerprisek9 image c2691-mz.124-25c.bin, and OPNET Modeler 14.5 for simulation. The results of the study can be used as a proof-of-concept testing in the design document for later use as contemplated in the manufacture of plan implementation and verification plan.

Study on the evolutionary optimisation of the topology of network control systems

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Zude; Chen, Benyuan; Wang, Hong; Fan, Zhun

2010-08-01

Computer networks have been very popular in enterprise applications. However, optimisation of network designs that allows networks to be used more efficiently in industrial environment and enterprise applications remains an interesting research topic. This article mainly discusses the topology optimisation theory and methods of the network control system based on switched Ethernet in an industrial context. Factors that affect the real-time performance of the industrial control network are presented in detail, and optimisation criteria with their internal relations are analysed. After the definition of performance parameters, the normalised indices for the evaluation of the topology optimisation are proposed. The topology optimisation problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimisation problem and the evolutionary algorithm is applied to solve it. Special communication characteristics of the industrial control network are considered in the optimisation process. In respect to the evolutionary algorithm design, an improved arena algorithm is proposed for the construction of the non-dominated set of the population. In addition, for the evaluation of individuals, the integrated use of the dominative relation method and the objective function combination method, for reducing the computational cost of the algorithm, are given. Simulation tests show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is preferable and superior compared to other algorithms. The final solution greatly improves the following indices: traffic localisation, traffic balance and utilisation rate balance of switches. In addition, a new performance index with its estimation process is proposed.