Comparison of the Cellient(™) automated cell block system and agar cell block method.

Science.gov (United States)

Kruger, A M; Stevens, M W; Kerley, K J; Carter, C D

2014-12-01

To compare the Cellient(TM) automated cell block system with the agar cell block method in terms of quantity and quality of diagnostic material and morphological, histochemical and immunocytochemical features. Cell blocks were prepared from 100 effusion samples using the agar method and Cellient system, and routinely sectioned and stained for haematoxylin and eosin and periodic acid-Schiff with diastase (PASD). A preliminary immunocytochemical study was performed on selected cases (27/100 cases). Sections were evaluated using a three-point grading system to compare a set of morphological parameters. Statistical analysis was performed using Fisher's exact test. Parameters assessing cellularity, presence of single cells and definition of nuclear membrane, nucleoli, chromatin and cytoplasm showed a statistically significant improvement on Cellient cell blocks compared with agar cell blocks (P cell groups, PASD staining or the intensity or clarity of immunocytochemical staining. A discrepant immunocytochemistry (ICC) result was seen in 21% (13/63) of immunostains. The Cellient technique is comparable with the agar method, with statistically significant results achieved for important morphological features. It demonstrates potential as an alternative cell block preparation method which is relevant for the rapid processing of fine needle aspiration samples, malignant effusions and low-cellularity specimens, where optimal cell morphology and architecture are essential. Further investigation is required to optimize immunocytochemical staining using the Cellient method. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Analysis of Blocking Rate and Bandwidth Usage of Mobile IPTV Services in Wireless Cellular Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mingfu Li

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Mobile IPTV services over wireless cellular networks become more and more popular, owing to the significant growth in access bandwidth of wireless cellular networks such as 3G/4G and WiMAX. However, the spectrum resources of wireless cellular networks is rare. How to enhance the spectral efficiency of mobile networks becomes an important issue. Unicast, broadcast, and multicast are the most important transport schemes for offering mobile IPTV services over wireless cellular networks. Therefore, bandwidth usages and blocking rates of unicast, broadcast, and multicast IPTV services were analyzed and compared in this paper. Simulations were also conducted to validate the analytical results. Numerical results demonstrate that the presented analysis is correct, and multicast scheme achieves the best bandwidth usage and blocking rate performance, relative to the other two schemes.

Analysis of blocking rate and bandwidth usage of mobile IPTV services in wireless cellular networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Mingfu

2014-01-01

Mobile IPTV services over wireless cellular networks become more and more popular, owing to the significant growth in access bandwidth of wireless cellular networks such as 3G/4G and WiMAX. However, the spectrum resources of wireless cellular networks is rare. How to enhance the spectral efficiency of mobile networks becomes an important issue. Unicast, broadcast, and multicast are the most important transport schemes for offering mobile IPTV services over wireless cellular networks. Therefore, bandwidth usages and blocking rates of unicast, broadcast, and multicast IPTV services were analyzed and compared in this paper. Simulations were also conducted to validate the analytical results. Numerical results demonstrate that the presented analysis is correct, and multicast scheme achieves the best bandwidth usage and blocking rate performance, relative to the other two schemes.

Solving block linear systems with low-rank off-diagonal blocks is easily parallelizable

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Menkov, V. [Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)

1996-12-31

An easily and efficiently parallelizable direct method is given for solving a block linear system Bx = y, where B = D + Q is the sum of a non-singular block diagonal matrix D and a matrix Q with low-rank blocks. This implicitly defines a new preconditioning method with an operation count close to the cost of calculating a matrix-vector product Qw for some w, plus at most twice the cost of calculating Qw for some w. When implemented on a parallel machine the processor utilization can be as good as that of those operations. Order estimates are given for the general case, and an implementation is compared to block SSOR preconditioning.

SLS Block 1-B and Exploration Upper Stage Navigation System Design

Science.gov (United States)

Oliver, T. Emerson; Park, Thomas B.; Smith, Austin; Anzalone, Evan; Bernard, Bill; Strickland, Dennis; Geohagan, Kevin; Green, Melissa; Leggett, Jarred

2018-01-01

The SLS Block 1B vehicle is planned to extend NASA's heavy lift capability beyond the initial SLS Block 1 vehicle. The most noticeable change for this vehicle from SLS Block 1 is the swapping of the upper stage from the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion stage (ICPS), a modified Delta IV upper stage, to the more capable Exploration Upper Stage (EUS). As the vehicle evolves to provide greater lift capability and execute more demanding missions so must the SLS Integrated Navigation System to support those missions. The SLS Block 1 vehicle carries two independent navigation systems. The responsibility of the two systems is delineated between ascent and upper stage flight. The Block 1 navigation system is responsible for the phase of flight between the launch pad and insertion into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). The upper stage system assumes the mission from LEO to payload separation. For the Block 1B vehicle, the two functions are combined into a single system intended to navigate from ground to payload insertion. Both are responsible for self-disposal once payload delivery is achieved. The evolution of the navigation hardware and algorithms from an inertial-only navigation system for Block 1 ascent flight to a tightly coupled GPS-aided inertial navigation system for Block 1-B is described. The Block 1 GN&C system has been designed to meet a LEO insertion target with a specified accuracy. The Block 1-B vehicle navigation system is designed to support the Block 1 LEO target accuracy as well as trans-lunar or trans-planetary injection accuracy. This is measured in terms of payload impact and stage disposal requirements. Additionally, the Block 1-B vehicle is designed to support human exploration and thus is designed to minimize the probability of Loss of Crew (LOC) through high-quality inertial instruments and Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery (FDIR) logic. The preliminary Block 1B integrated navigation system design is presented along with the challenges associated with

Block circulant and block Toeplitz approximants of a class of spatially distributed systems-An LQR perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Iftime, Orest V.

2012-01-01

In this paper block circulant and block Toeplitz long strings of MIMO systems with finite length are compared with their corresponding infinite-dimensional spatially invariant systems. The focus is on the convergence of the sequence of solutions to the control Riccati equations and the convergence

Flash memory management system and method utilizing multiple block list windows

Science.gov (United States)

Chow, James (Inventor); Gender, Thomas K. (Inventor)

2005-01-01

The present invention provides a flash memory management system and method with increased performance. The flash memory management system provides the ability to efficiently manage and allocate flash memory use in a way that improves reliability and longevity, while maintaining good performance levels. The flash memory management system includes a free block mechanism, a disk maintenance mechanism, and a bad block detection mechanism. The free block mechanism provides efficient sorting of free blocks to facilitate selecting low use blocks for writing. The disk maintenance mechanism provides for the ability to efficiently clean flash memory blocks during processor idle times. The bad block detection mechanism provides the ability to better detect when a block of flash memory is likely to go bad. The flash status mechanism stores information in fast access memory that describes the content and status of the data in the flash disk. The new bank detection mechanism provides the ability to automatically detect when new banks of flash memory are added to the system. Together, these mechanisms provide a flash memory management system that can improve the operational efficiency of systems that utilize flash memory.

Powered Explicit Guidance Modifications and Enhancements for Space Launch System Block-1 and Block-1B Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

Von der Porten, Paul; Ahmad, Naeem; Hawkins, Matt; Fill, Thomas

2018-01-01

NASA is currently building the Space Launch System (SLS) Block-1 launch vehicle for the Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) test flight. NASA is also currently designing the next evolution of SLS, the Block-1B. The Block-1 and Block-1B vehicles will use the Powered Explicit Guidance (PEG) algorithm (of Space Shuttle heritage) for closed loop guidance. To accommodate vehicle capabilities and design for future evolutions of SLS, modifications were made to PEG for Block-1 to handle multi-phase burns, provide PEG updated propulsion information, and react to a core stage engine out. In addition, due to the relatively low thrust-to-weight ratio of the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) and EUS carrying out Lunar Vicinity and Earth Escape missions, certain enhancements to the Block-1 PEG algorithm are needed to perform Block-1B missions to account for long burn arcs and target translunar and hyperbolic orbits. This paper describes the design and implementation of modifications to the Block-1 PEG algorithm as compared to Space Shuttle. Furthermore, this paper illustrates challenges posed by the Block-1B vehicle and the required PEG enhancements. These improvements make PEG capable for use on the SLS Block-1B vehicle as part of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) System.

Consultation on the Libyan health systems: towards patient-centred services

Science.gov (United States)

El Oakley, Reida M.; Ghrew, Murad H.; Aboutwerat, Ali A.; Alageli, Nabil A.; Neami, Khaldon A.; Kerwat, Rajab M.; Elfituri, Abdulbaset A.; Ziglam, Hisham M.; Saifenasser, Aymen M.; Bahron, Ali M.; Aburawi, Elhadi H.; Sagar, Samir A.; Tajoury, Adel E.; Benamer, Hani T.S.

2013-01-01

The extra demand imposed upon the Libyan health services during and after the Libyan revolution in 2011 led the ailing health systems to collapse. To start the planning process to re-engineer the health sector, the Libyan Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international experts in the field sponsored the National Health Systems Conference in Tripoli, Libya, between the 26th and the 30th of August 2012. The aim of this conference was to study how health systems function at the international arena and to facilitate a consultative process between 500 Libyan health experts in order to identify the problems within the Libyan health system and propose potential solutions. The scientific programme adopted the WHO health care system framework and used its six system building blocks: i) Health Governance; ii) Health Care Finance; iii) Health Service Delivery; iv) Human Resources for Health; v) Pharmaceuticals and Health Technology; and vi) Health Information System. The experts used a structured approach starting with clarifying the concepts, evaluating the current status of that health system block in Libya, thereby identifying the strengths, weaknesses, and major deficiencies. This article summarises the 500 health expert recommendations that seized the opportunity to map a modern health systems to take the Libyan health sector into the 21st century. PMID:23359277

Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Common Ground System (CGS) Technical Performance Measures of the Block 2 Architecture

Science.gov (United States)

Grant, K. D.; Panas, M.

2016-12-01

NOAA and NASA are jointly acquiring the next-generation civilian weather satellite system: the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). JPSS replaced the afternoon orbit component and ground processing of NOAA's old POES system. JPSS satellites carry sensors that collect meteorological, oceanographic, climatological, and solar-geophysical observations of the earth, atmosphere, and space. The ground processing system for JPSS is known as the JPSS Common Ground System (JPSS CGS). Developed and maintained by Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services (IIS), the CGS is a globally distributed, multi-mission system serving NOAA, NASA and their national and international partners. The CGS has demonstrated its scalability and flexibility to incorporate multiple missions efficiently and with minimal cost, schedule and risk, while strengthening global partnerships in weather and environmental monitoring. The CGS architecture has been upgraded to Block 2.0 to satisfy several key objectives, including: "operationalizing" the first satellite, Suomi NPP, which originally was a risk reduction mission; leveraging lessons learned in multi-mission support, taking advantage of newer, more reliable and efficient technologies and satisfying constraints due of the continually evolving budgetary environment. To ensure the CGS meets these needs, we have developed 48 Technical Performance Measures (TPMs) across 9 categories: Data Availability, Data Latency, Operational Availability, Margin, Scalability, Situational Awareness, Transition (between environments and sites), WAN Efficiency, and Data Recovery Processing. This paper will provide an overview of the CGS Block 2.0 architecture, with particular focus on the 9 TPM categories listed above. We will describe how we ensure the deployed architecture meets these TPMs to satisfy our multi-mission objectives with the deployment of Block 2.0.

USING THE ADAPTED DLP SYSTEM FOR BLOCKING INFORMATION LEAKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. A. Andryianava

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The importance of using the adapted DLP-system in the «Blocking» mode of leaking confidential information of the company is investigated. The scheme of interception of information security events in the «Copy» mode is given, the analysis of which reflects the main drawback of using this mode – the DLP-system works only with copies of confidential documents, while the originals were delivered to the recipient. Such cases inflict enormous damage on companies, so the transfer of critical information beyond the corporate network is unacceptable.A solution is proposed for transferring the operation of the DLP-system from the «Copy» mode to the «Blocking» mode. It is important that the operation of the DLP-system does not hinder the staff members from performing regular operations and does not hinder business processes. Therefore, it is mandatory to adapt the standard DLP-system to the specifics of the company’s activities. After that the transition of the adapted DLP-system to the «Blocking» mode is carried out.Developed: the transition procedure of the adapted DLP-system from the «Copy» mode to the «Blocking» mode, the scheme of the event capture by the DLP-system for the two modes. The main channels of data leaks were investigated, the main leaks were identified by the data type and by the transmission channel. The analysis of the DLP-system operation in the «Blocking» mode is performed.

A fast direct method for block triangular Toeplitz-like with tri-diagonal block systems from time-fractional partial differential equations

Science.gov (United States)

Ke, Rihuan; Ng, Michael K.; Sun, Hai-Wei

2015-12-01

In this paper, we study the block lower triangular Toeplitz-like with tri-diagonal blocks system which arises from the time-fractional partial differential equation. Existing fast numerical solver (e.g., fast approximate inversion method) cannot handle such linear system as the main diagonal blocks are different. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a fast direct method for solving this linear system, and to illustrate that the proposed method is much faster than the classical block forward substitution method for solving this linear system. Our idea is based on the divide-and-conquer strategy and together with the fast Fourier transforms for calculating Toeplitz matrix-vector multiplication. The complexity needs O (MNlog2 ⁡ M) arithmetic operations, where M is the number of blocks (the number of time steps) in the system and N is the size (number of spatial grid points) of each block. Numerical examples from the finite difference discretization of time-fractional partial differential equations are also given to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method.

Building blocks for modular data acquisition systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hoffmann, B

1996-12-31

The principles of building blocks for modular data acquisition systems by means of the VIC bus are discussed. Real time operating systems based on the VME environment for program development drastically reducing the time needed to develop a working system. 4 figs.

Ground standoff mine detection system (GSTAMIDS) engineering, manufacturing, and development (EMD) Block 0

Science.gov (United States)

Pressley, Jackson R.; Pabst, Donald; Sower, Gary D.; Nee, Larry; Green, Brian; Howard, Peter

2001-10-01

The United States Army has contracted EG&G Technical Services to build the GSTAMIDS EMD Block 0. This system autonomously detects and marks buried anti-tank land mines from an unmanned vehicle. It consists of a remotely operated host vehicle, standard teleoperation system (STS) control, mine detection system (MDS) and a control vehicle. Two complete systems are being fabricated, along with a third MDS. The host vehicle for Block 0 is the South African Meerkat that has overpass capability for anti-tank mines, as well as armor anti-mine blast protection and ballistic protection. It is operated via the STS radio link from within the control vehicle. The Main Computer System (MCS), located in the control vehicle, receives sensor data from the MDS via a high speed radio link, processes and fuses the data to make a decision of a mine detection, and sends the information back to the host vehicle for a mark to be placed on the mine location. The MCS also has the capability to interface into the FBCB2 system via SINGARS radio. The GSTAMIDS operator station and the control vehicle communications system also connect to the MCS. The MDS sensors are mounted on the host vehicle and include Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Pulsed Magnetic Induction (PMI) metal detector, and (as an option) long-wave infrared (LWIR). A distributed processing architecture is used so that pre-processing is performed on data at the sensor level before transmission to the MCS, minimizing required throughput. Nine (9) channels each of GPR and PMI are mounted underneath the meerkat to provide a three-meter detection swath. Two IR cameras are mounted on the upper sides of the Meerkat, providing a field of view of the required swath with overlap underneath the vehicle. Also included on the host vehicle are an Internal Navigation System (INS), Global Positioning System (GPS), and radio communications for remote control and data transmission. The GSTAMIDS Block 0 is designed as a modular, expandable system

Differential Space-Time Block Code Modulation for DS-CDMA Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liu Jianhua

2002-01-01

Full Text Available A differential space-time block code (DSTBC modulation scheme is used to improve the performance of DS-CDMA systems in fast time-dispersive fading channels. The resulting scheme is referred to as the differential space-time block code modulation for DS-CDMA (DSTBC-CDMA systems. The new modulation and demodulation schemes are especially studied for the down-link transmission of DS-CDMA systems. We present three demodulation schemes, referred to as the differential space-time block code Rake (D-Rake receiver, differential space-time block code deterministic (D-Det receiver, and differential space-time block code deterministic de-prefix (D-Det-DP receiver, respectively. The D-Det receiver exploits the known information of the spreading sequences and their delayed paths deterministically besides the Rake type combination; consequently, it can outperform the D-Rake receiver, which employs the Rake type combination only. The D-Det-DP receiver avoids the effect of intersymbol interference and hence can offer better performance than the D-Det receiver.

Fuel System: Automotive Mechanics Instructional Program. Block 4.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Brien, Ralph D.

The fourth of six instructional blocks in automotive mechanics, the lessons and supportive information in the document provide a guide for teachers in planning an instructional program in automotive fuel systems at the secondary and post secondary level. The material, as organized, is a suggested sequence of instruction within each block. Each…

Cooling System: Automotive Mechanics Instructional Program. Block 6.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Brien, Ralph D.

The last of six instructional blocks in automotive mechanics, the lessons and supportive information in the document provide a guide for teachers in planning an instructional program in the automotive cooling system at the secondary and post secondary level. The material, as organized, is a suggested sequence of instruction within each block. Each…

Elderly Service Workers' Training Project. Block B: Cultural Gerontology. Module B.2: German Culture.

Science.gov (United States)

Harvey, Dexter; Cap, Orest

This learning module, which is part of a three-block series intended to help human service workers develop the skills necessary to solve the problems encountered in their daily contact with elderly clients of different cultural backgrounds, deals with German culture. The first section provides background information about the German migrations to…

KNBD: A Remote Kernel Block Server for Linux

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, Jeff

1999-01-01

I am developing a prototype of a Linux remote disk block server whose purpose is to serve as a lower level component of a parallel file system. Parallel file systems are an important component of high performance supercomputers and clusters. Although supercomputer vendors such as SGI and IBM have their own custom solutions, there has been a void and hence a demand for such a system on Beowulf-type PC Clusters. Recently, the Parallel Virtual File System (PVFS) project at Clemson University has begun to address this need (1). Although their system provides much of the functionality of (and indeed was inspired by) the equivalent file systems in the commercial supercomputer market, their system is all in user-space. Migrating their 10 services to the kernel could provide a performance boost, by obviating the need for expensive system calls. Thanks to Pavel Machek, the Linux kernel has provided the network block device (2) with kernels 2.1.101 and later. You can configure this block device to redirect reads and writes to a remote machine's disk. This can be used as a building block for constructing a striped file system across several nodes.

Paroxysmal atrioventricular block: Electrophysiological mechanism of phase 4 conduction block in the His-Purkinje system: A comparison with phase 3 block.

Science.gov (United States)

Shenasa, Mohammad; Josephson, Mark E; Wit, Andrew L

2017-11-01

Paroxysmal atrioventricular (A-V) block is relatively rare, and due to its transient nature, it is often under recognized. It is often triggered by atrial, junctional, or ventricular premature beats, and occurs in the presence of a diseased His-Purkinje system (HPS). Here, we present a 45-year-old white male who was admitted for observation due to recurrent syncope and near-syncope, who had paroxysmal A-V block. The likely cellular electrophysiological mechanisms(s) of paroxysmal A-V block and its differential diagnosis and management are discussed. Continuous electrocardiographic monitoring was done while the patient was in the cardiac unit. Multiple episodes of paroxysmal A-V block were documented in this case. All episodes were initiated and terminated with atrial/junctional premature beats. The patient underwent permanent pacemaker implantation and has remained asymptomatic since then. Paroxysmal A-V block is rare and often causes syncope or near-syncope. Permanent pacemaker implantation is indicated according to the current guidelines. Paroxysmal A-V block occurs in the setting of diseased HPS and is bradycardia-dependent. The detailed electrophysiological mechanisms, which involve phase 4 diastolic depolarization, and differential diagnosis are discussed. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The block transfer system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bradish, G.J. III; Reid, A.E.

1986-01-01

The central instrumentation control and data acquisition (CICADA) computer system is comprised of a functionally distributed hierarchical network of thirteen (13) 32-bit mini-computers that are the heart of the control, monitoring, data collection and data analysis for the tokamak fusion test reactor (TFTR). The CICADA system was designed with the goal of providing complete control, monitoring, and data acquisition for TFTR, which includes the acquisition and storage of 20M points of data within a five-minute shot cycle. It was realized early in the system design that in order to meet this goal an ancillary system would have to be provided to supplement the subsystem CAMAC systems that, due to the relatively slow throughput of the serial highways and the overhead of relaying data to the central facilities within a star network, would not provide the necessary throughput. The authors discuss how the block transfer system provided a means of moving data directly from the CAMAC crate to the application running on the central facility computers

The Changeable Block Distance System Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Lewiński, Andrzej; Toruń, Andrzej

The paper treats about efficiency analysis in Changeable Block Distance (CBD) System connected with wireless positioning and control of train. The analysis is based on modeling of typical ERTMS line and comparison with actual and future traffic. The calculations are related to assumed parameters of railway traffic corresponding to real time - table of distance Psary - Góra Włodowska from CMK line equipped in classic, ETCS Level 1 and ETCS with CBD systems.

Analog Organic Electronics Building Blocks for Organic Smart Sensor Systems on Foil

CERN Document Server

Marien, Hagen; Heremans, Paul

2013-01-01

 This book provides insight into organic electronics technology and in analog circuit techniques that can be used to increase the performance of both analog and digital organic circuits. It explores the domain of organic electronics technology for analog circuit applications, specifically smart sensor systems.  It focuses on all the building blocks in the data path of an organic sensor system between the sensor and the digital processing block. Sensors, amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters and DC-DC converters are discussed in detail. Coverage includes circuit techniques, circuit implementation, design decisions and measurement results of the building blocks described. Offers readers the first book to focus on analog organic circuit design; Discusses organic electronics technology for analog circuit applications in the context of smart sensor systems; Describes all building blocks necessary for an organic sensor system between the sensor and the digital processing block; Includes circuit techniques, cir...

A completely transparent, adhesively bonded soda-lime glass block masonry system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Oikonomopoulou

2015-01-01

Full Text Available A pioneering, all transparent, self-supporting glass block facade is presented in this paper. Previously realized examples utilize embedded metal components in order to obtain the desired structural performance despite the fact that these elements greatly affect the facade’s overall transparency level. Undeniably, the oxymoron ‘transparency and strength’ remains the prime concern in such applications. In this paper, a new, innovative structural system for glass block facades is described, which demonstrably meets both criteria. The structure is exclusively constructed by monolithic glass blocks, bonded with a colourless, UV-curing adhesive, obtaining thus a maximum transparency. In addition, the desired structural performance is achieved solely through the masonry system, without any opaque substructure. Differing from previous realized projects, solid soda-lime glass blocks are used rather than borosilicate ones. This article provides an overview of the integrated architectural and structural design and discusses the choice of materials. The structural verification of the system is demonstrated. The results show that the adhesively bonded glass block structure has the required self-structural behaviour, but only if strict tolerances are met in the geometry of the glass blocks.

Development of measurement system for gauge block interferometer

Science.gov (United States)

Chomkokard, S.; Jinuntuya, N.; Wongkokua, W.

2017-09-01

We developed a measurement system for collecting and analyzing the fringe pattern images from a gauge block interferometer. The system was based on Raspberry Pi which is an open source system with python programming and opencv image manipulation library. The images were recorded by the Raspberry Pi camera with five-megapixel capacity. The noise of images was suppressed for the best result in analyses. The low noise images were processed to find the edge of fringe patterns using the contour technique for the phase shift analyses. We tested our system with the phase shift patterns between a gauge block and a reference plate. The phase shift patterns were measured by a Twyman-Green type of interferometer using the He-Ne laser with the temperature controlled at 20.0 °C. The results of the measurement will be presented and discussed.

Design issues for block-oriented reflective memory system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jovanovic, M; Tomasevic, M; Milutinovic, V

1996-12-31

The block-oriented reflective memory (BORM) system represents a modular bus-based system architecture that belongs to the class of distributed shared memory systems. The results of the evaluation study of the BORM implementation strategies and design decisions in regard to the different values of input parameters are presented. 5 refs.

Cooperative storage of shared files in a parallel computing system with dynamic block size

Science.gov (United States)

Bent, John M.; Faibish, Sorin; Grider, Gary

2015-11-10

Improved techniques are provided for parallel writing of data to a shared object in a parallel computing system. A method is provided for storing data generated by a plurality of parallel processes to a shared object in a parallel computing system. The method is performed by at least one of the processes and comprises: dynamically determining a block size for storing the data; exchanging a determined amount of the data with at least one additional process to achieve a block of the data having the dynamically determined block size; and writing the block of the data having the dynamically determined block size to a file system. The determined block size comprises, e.g., a total amount of the data to be stored divided by the number of parallel processes. The file system comprises, for example, a log structured virtual parallel file system, such as a Parallel Log-Structured File System (PLFS).

A Block Iterative Finite Element Model for Nonlinear Leaky Aquifer Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Gambolati, Giuseppe; Teatini, Pietro

1996-01-01

A new quasi three-dimensional finite element model of groundwater flow is developed for highly compressible multiaquifer systems where aquitard permeability and elastic storage are dependent on hydraulic drawdown. The model is solved by a block iterative strategy, which is naturally suggested by the geological structure of the porous medium and can be shown to be mathematically equivalent to a block Gauss-Seidel procedure. As such it can be generalized into a block overrelaxation procedure and greatly accelerated by the use of the optimum overrelaxation factor. Results for both linear and nonlinear multiaquifer systems emphasize the excellent computational performance of the model and indicate that convergence in leaky systems can be improved up to as much as one order of magnitude.

Adaptive Multi-Layered Space-Time Block Coded Systems in Wireless Environments

KAUST Repository

Al-Ghadhban, Samir

2014-01-01

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York. Multi-layered space-time block coded systems (MLSTBC) strike a balance between spatial multiplexing and transmit diversity. In this paper, we analyze the block error rate performance of MLSTBC

21 CFR 882.5070 - Bite block.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Bite block. 882.5070 Section 882.5070 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (CONTINUED) MEDICAL DEVICES NEUROLOGICAL DEVICES Neurological Therapeutic Devices § 882.5070 Bite block. (a) Identification. A bite block...

Block colourings of 6-cycle systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paola Bonacini

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Let \\(\\Sigma=(X,\\mathcal{B}\\ be a \\(6\\-cycle system of order \\(v\\, so \\(v\\equiv 1,9\\mod 12\\. A \\(c\\-colouring of type \\(s\\ is a map \\(\\phi\\colon\\mathcal {B}\\rightarrow \\mathcal{C}\\, with \\(C\\ set of colours, such that exactly \\(c\\ colours are used and for every vertex \\(x\\ all the blocks containing \\(x\\ are coloured exactly with \\(s\\ colours. Let \\(\\frac{v-1}{2}=qs+r\\, with \\(q, r\\geq 0\\. \\(\\phi\\ is equitable if for every vertex \\(x\\ the set of the \\(\\frac{v-1}{2}\\ blocks containing \\(x\\ is partitioned in \\(r\\ colour classes of cardinality \\(q+1\\ and \\(s-r\\ colour classes of cardinality \\(q\\. In this paper we study bicolourings and tricolourings, for which, respectively, \\(s=2\\ and \\(s=3\\, distinguishing the cases \\(v=12k+1\\ and \\(v=12k+9\\. In particular, we settle completely the case of \\(s=2\\, while for \\(s=3\\ we determine upper and lower bounds for \\(c\\.

Internet of Things building blocks and business models

CERN Document Server

Hussain, Fatima

2017-01-01

This book describes the building blocks and introductory business models for Internet of Things (IoT). The author provide an overview of the entire IoT architecture and constituent layers, followed by detail description of each block . Various inter-connecting technologies and sensors are discussed in context of IoT networks. In addition to this, concepts of Big Data and Fog Computing are presented and characterized as per data generated by versatile IoT applications . Smart parking system and context aware services are presented as an hybrid model of cloud and Fog Afterwards, various IoT applications and respective business models are discussed. Finally, author summarizes the IoT building blocks and identify research issues in each, and suggest potential research projects worthy of pursuing. .

Product Service Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Departing from Product Development models based on physical artefacts. Moving towards integrated Product Development and System Operations models suited Product/Service-systems......Departing from Product Development models based on physical artefacts. Moving towards integrated Product Development and System Operations models suited Product/Service-systems...

Universal block diagram based modeling and simulation schemes for fractional-order control systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Bai, Lu; Xue, Dingyü

2017-05-08

Universal block diagram based schemes are proposed for modeling and simulating the fractional-order control systems in this paper. A fractional operator block in Simulink is designed to evaluate the fractional-order derivative and integral. Based on the block, the fractional-order control systems with zero initial conditions can be modeled conveniently. For modeling the system with nonzero initial conditions, the auxiliary signal is constructed in the compensation scheme. Since the compensation scheme is very complicated, therefore the integrator chain scheme is further proposed to simplify the modeling procedures. The accuracy and effectiveness of the schemes are assessed in the examples, the computation results testify the block diagram scheme is efficient for all Caputo fractional-order ordinary differential equations (FODEs) of any complexity, including the implicit Caputo FODEs. Copyright © 2017 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reliability Approach of a Compressor System using Reliability Block ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

pc

2018-03-05

Mar 5, 2018 ... This paper presents a reliability analysis of such a system using reliability ... Keywords-compressor system, reliability, reliability block diagram, RBD .... the same structure has been kept with the three subsystems: air flow, oil flow and .... and Safety in Engineering Design", Springer, 2009. [3] P. O'Connor ...

Extended block diagram method for a multi-state system reliability assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lisnianski, Anatoly

2007-01-01

The presented method extends the classical reliability block diagram method to a repairable multi-state system. It is very suitable for engineering applications since the procedure is well formalized and based on the natural decomposition of the entire multi-state system (the system is represented as a collection of its elements). Until now, the classical block diagram method did not provide the reliability assessment for the repairable multi-state system. The straightforward stochastic process methods are very difficult for engineering application in such cases due to the 'dimension damnation'-huge number of system states. The suggested method is based on the combined random processes and the universal generating function technique and drastically reduces the number of states in the multi-state model

Block and sub-block boundary strengthening in lath martensite

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Du, C.; Hoefnagels, J.P.M.; Vaes, R.; Geers, M.G.D.

2016-01-01

Well-defined uniaxial micro-tensile tests were performed on lath martensite single block specimens and multi-block specimens with different number of block boundaries parallel to the loading direction. Detailed slip trace analyses consistently revealed that in the {110}<111> slip system with the

Substance abuse treatment management information systems: balancing federal, state, and service provider needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Camp, J M; Krakow, M; McCarty, D; Argeriou, M

1992-01-01

There is increased interest in documenting the characteristics and treatment outcomes of clients served with Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Block Grant funds. The evolution of federal client-based management systems for substance abuse treatment services demonstrates that data collection systems are important but require continued support. A review of the Massachusetts substance abuse management information system illustrates the utility of a client-based data set. The development and implementation of a comprehensive information system require overcoming organizational barriers and project delays, fostering collaborative efforts among staff from diverse agencies, and employing considerable resources. In addition, the need to develop mechanisms for increasing the reliability of the data and ongoing training for the users is presented. Finally, three applications of the management information system's role in shaping policy are reviewed: developing services for special populations (communities of color, women, and pregnant substance abusers, and injection drug users), utilizing MIS data for evaluation purposes, and determining funding allocations.

Coarse-grained modeling of hybrid block copolymer system

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Yongrui

This thesis is comprised of three major projects of my research. In the first project, I proposed a nanoparticle model and combined it with the Theoretically Informed Coarse Grained (TICG) model for pure polymer systems and the grand canonical slip springs model developed in our group to build a new model for entangled nanocomposites. With Molecule Dynamics(MD) simulation, I studied the mechanic properties of the nanocomposites, for example the influence of nanoparticles size and volume fraction on entanglements, the diffusion of polymers and nanoparticles, and the influence of nanoparticles size and volume fraction on viscosity et al.. We found that the addition of small-size nanoparticles reduces the viscosity of the nanocomposites, which is in contrary to what Einstein predicted a century ago. However, when particle increases its size to micrometers the Einstein predictions is recovered. From our simulation, we believe that small-size nanoparticles can more effectively decrease the entanglements of nanocomposites than larger particles. The free volume effect introduced by small-size nanoparticles also helps decrease the viscosity of the whole system. In the second project, I combined the Ohta-Kawasaki (OK) model [3] and the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutionary Strategy(CMA-ES) to optimize the block copolymer blends self-assembly in the hole-shrink process. The aim is to predict the optimal composition and the optimal surface energy to direct the block copolymer blends self-assembly process in the confined hole. After optimization in the OK model, we calibrated the optimal results by the more reliable TICG model and got the same morphology. By comparing different optimization process, we found that the homopolymers which are comprised of the same monomers as either block of the block copolymer can form a perfect perforated hole and might have better performance than the pure block copolymer. While homopolymers which are comprised of a third-party monomers

Adaptive Multi-Layered Space-Time Block Coded Systems in Wireless Environments

KAUST Repository

Al-Ghadhban, Samir

2014-12-23

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York. Multi-layered space-time block coded systems (MLSTBC) strike a balance between spatial multiplexing and transmit diversity. In this paper, we analyze the block error rate performance of MLSTBC. In addition, we propose an adaptive MLSTBC schemes that are capable of accommodating the channel signal-to-noise ratio variation of wireless systems by near instantaneously adapting the uplink transmission configuration. The main results demonstrate that significant effective throughput improvements can be achieved while maintaining a certain target bit error rate.

Architecting Service-Oriented Systems

Science.gov (United States)

2011-08-01

Abstract Service orientation is an approach to software systems development that has become a popular way to implement distributed, loosely coupled...runtime. The later you defer binding the more flexibility service providers and service consumers have to develop their software systems independently...Enterprise Service Bus An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a software pattern that can be part of a SOA infrastructure and acts as an intermediary

Satellite services system overview

Science.gov (United States)

Rysavy, G.

1982-01-01

The benefits of a satellite services system and the basic needs of the Space Transportation System to have improved satellite service capability are identified. Specific required servicing equipment are discussed in terms of their technology development status and their operative functions. Concepts include maneuverable television systems, extravehicular maneuvering unit, orbiter exterior lighting, satellite holding and positioning aid, fluid transfer equipment, end effectors for the remote manipulator system, teleoperator maneuvering system, and hand and power tools.

Northeast Inspection Services, Inc. boresonic inspection system evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nottingham, L.D.; Sabourin, P.F.; Presson, J.H.

1993-04-01

Turbine rotor reliability and remaining life assessment are continuing concerns to electric utilities. Over the years, boresonic inspection and evaluation have served as primary components in rotor remaining life assessment. Beginning with an evaluation of TREES by EPRI in 1982, a series of reports that document the detection and sizing capabilities of several boresonic systems have been made available. These studies should provide utilities with a better understanding of system performance and lead to improved reliability when predicting rotor remaining life. In 1990, the procedures followed for evaluating rotor boresonic performance capabilities were changed to transfer a greater portion of the data analysis function to the participating vendor. This change from previous policy was instituted so that the evaluation results would better reflect the ''final answer'' that a vendor would provide in a real rotor inspection and also to reduce the cost of an evaluation. Among the first vendors to participate in the new performance demonstration was Northeast Inspection Services, Inc. (NISI). The tests reported herein were conducted by NISI personnel under the guidelines of the new plan. Details of the new evaluation plan are also presented. Rotor bore blocks containing surface-connected fatigue cracks, embedded glass beads, and embedded radial-axial oriented disks were used in the evaluation. Data were collected during twenty-five independent passes through the blocks. The evaluation consisted of statistical characterization of the detection capabilities, flaw sizing and location accuracy, and repeatability of the inspection system. The results of the evaluation are included in this report

Control of systems with I/O delay via reduction to a one-block problem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meinsma, Gjerrit; Mirkin, Leonid; Zhong, Qing-Chang

2002-01-01

In this paper, the standard (four-block) H/sup /spl infin// control problem for systems with a single delay in the feedback loop is studied. A simple procedure of the reduction of the problem to an equivalent one-block problem having particularly simple structure is proposed. The one-block problem

SIDAS - a block-diagram programming system for the interactive digital simulation of dynamic systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moll, H.; Burkhardt, H.

1978-01-01

The paper describes a block-oriented digital simulation system. Some applications clarify the basic structure and operation. The main features of the system are: Easy handling and manipulation through interactive graphical input/output, operational flexibility through successive simulation runs and online modification of parameters, direct access to all facilities of a medium-sized computing system. (orig.) [de

Block storage subsystem performance analysis

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2016-01-01

You feel that your service is slow because of the storage subsystem? But there are too many abstraction layers between your software and the raw block device for you to debug all this pile... Let's dive on the platters and check out how the block storage sees your I/Os! We can even figure out what those patterns are meaning.

["Habitual" left branch block alternating with 2 "disguised" bracnch block].

Science.gov (United States)

Lévy, S; Jullien, G; Mathieu, P; Mostefa, S; Gérard, R

1976-10-01

Two cases of alternating left bundle branch block and "masquerading block" (with left bundle branch morphology in the stnadard leads and right bundle branch block morphology in the precordial leads) were studied by serial tracings and his bundle electrocardiography. In case 1 "the masquerading" block was associated with a first degree AV block related to a prolongation of HV interval. This case is to our knowledge the first cas of alternating bundle branch block in which his bundle activity was recorded in man. In case 2, the patient had atrial fibrilation and His bundle recordings were performed while differents degrees of left bundle branch block were present: The mechanism of the alternation and the concept of "masquerading" block are discussed. It is suggested that this type of block represents a right bundle branch block associated with severe lesions of the "left system".

The services and operational characteristics of the Eutelsat system

Science.gov (United States)

Galante, F. M.

The Eutelsat satellite multiservice system (SMS) based on the French Telecom 1 and the European ECS satellites is characterized. Circuit-switched, reserved, full-time-leased, and part-time-leased services will be offered to business customers in point-to-point or point-to-multipoint configurations and in one-way or two-way modes for such purposes as video or audio conferencing, computer-to-computer data transfer, remote printing, packet-switched data transfer, fast facsimile, slow-scan TV, and electronic mail. Maps of the coverage zones and a block diagram of the monitoring and control network are provided, and consideration is given to the ground-station requirements and the access schemes (SCPC/FDMA for ECS; TDMA for Telecom 1).

Decision Support System for Blockage Management in Fire Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krasuski Adam

2014-08-01

Full Text Available In this article we present the foundations of a decision support system for blockage management in Fire Service. Blockage refers to the situation when all fire units are out and a new incident occurs. The approach is based on two phases: off-line data preparation and online blockage estimation. The off-line phase consists of methods from data mining and natural language processing and results in semantically coherent information granules. The online phase is about building the probabilistic models that estimate the block-age probability based on these granules. Finally, the selected classifier judges whether a blockage can occur and whether the resources from neighbour fire stations should be asked for assistance.

QuaBingo: A Prediction System for Protein Quaternary Structure Attributes Using Block Composition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chi-Hua Tung

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Quaternary structures of proteins are closely relevant to gene regulation, signal transduction, and many other biological functions of proteins. In the current study, a new method based on protein-conserved motif composition in block format for feature extraction is proposed, which is termed block composition. Results. The protein quaternary assembly states prediction system which combines blocks with functional domain composition, called QuaBingo, is constructed by three layers of classifiers that can categorize quaternary structural attributes of monomer, homooligomer, and heterooligomer. The building of the first layer classifier uses support vector machines (SVM based on blocks and functional domains of proteins, and the second layer SVM was utilized to process the outputs of the first layer. Finally, the result is determined by the Random Forest of the third layer. We compared the effectiveness of the combination of block composition, functional domain composition, and pseudoamino acid composition of the model. In the 11 kinds of functional protein families, QuaBingo is 23% of Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC higher than the existing prediction system. The results also revealed the biological characterization of the top five block compositions. Conclusions. QuaBingo provides better predictive ability for predicting the quaternary structural attributes of proteins.

Conceptualizing smart service systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beverungen, Daniel; Müller, Oliver; Matzner, Martin

2017-01-01

Recent years have seen the emergence of physical products that are digitally networked with other products and with information systems to enable complex business scenarios in manufacturing, mobility, or healthcare. These “smart products”, which enable the co-creation of “smart service” that is b......Recent years have seen the emergence of physical products that are digitally networked with other products and with information systems to enable complex business scenarios in manufacturing, mobility, or healthcare. These “smart products”, which enable the co-creation of “smart service......” that is based on monitoring, optimization, remote control, and autonomous adaptation of products, profoundly transform service systems into what we call “smart service systems”. In a multi-method study that includes conceptual research and qualitative data from in-depth interviews, we conceptualize “smart...... service” and “smart service systems” based on using smart products as boundary objects that integrate service consumers’ and service providers’ resources and activities. Smart products allow both actors to retrieve and to analyze aggregated field evidence and to adapt service systems based on contextual...

49 CFR 236.401 - Automatic block signal system and interlocking standards applicable to traffic control systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Traffic Control Systems Standards § 236.401 Automatic... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Automatic block signal system and interlocking standards applicable to traffic control systems. 236.401 Section 236.401 Transportation Other Regulations...

System and method for crystalline sheet growth using a cold block and gas jet

Science.gov (United States)

Kellerman, Peter L.; Mackintosh, Brian; Carlson, Frederick M.; Morrell, David; Moradian, Ala; Desai, Nandish; Sun, Dawei; Sinclair, Frank

2018-05-01

A crystallizer for growing a crystalline sheet from a melt may include a cold block having a cold block surface that faces an exposed surface of the melt, the cold block configured to generate a cold block temperature at the cold block surface that is lower than a melt temperature of the melt at the exposed surface. The system may also include a nozzle disposed within the cold block and configured to deliver a gas jet to the exposed surface, wherein the gas jet and the cold block are interoperative to generate a process zone that removes heat from the exposed surface at a first heat removal rate that is greater than a second heat removal rate from the exposed surface in outer regions outside of the process zone.

E-Block: A Tangible Programming Tool with Graphical Blocks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danli Wang

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper designs a tangible programming tool, E-Block, for children aged 5 to 9 to experience the preliminary understanding of programming by building blocks. With embedded artificial intelligence, the tool defines the programming blocks with the sensors as the input and enables children to write programs to complete the tasks in the computer. The symbol on the programming block's surface is used to help children understanding the function of each block. The sequence information is transferred to computer by microcomputers and then translated into semantic information. The system applies wireless and infrared technologies and provides user with feedbacks on both screen and programming blocks. Preliminary user studies using observation and user interview methods are shown for E-Block's prototype. The test results prove that E-Block is attractive to children and easy to learn and use. The project also highlights potential advantages of using single chip microcomputer (SCM technology to develop tangible programming tools for children.

Random matrix theory for pseudo-Hermitian systems: Cyclic blocks

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

We discuss the relevance of random matrix theory for pseudo-Hermitian systems, and, for Hamiltonians that break parity and time-reversal invariance . In an attempt to understand the random Ising model, we present the treatment of cyclic asymmetric matrices with blocks and show that the nearest-neighbour spacing ...

Performance evaluation of railway blocking system based on markov chain and queuing theory

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Jin; Chen, Hongxia; Yang, Yang

2005-12-01

Railway blocking system is the system with the high demanding of real-time performance. Firstly, the tasks and the time limits, which had to be handled for the blocking system, were introduced. The FCFS and the Markov chain were used to set the model for it. By analyzing the performance of the system with the FCFS model found out that it was not satisfied to the real-time performance. Secondly, NPPR model to evaluate the software real-time performance of the blocking processor was proposed. By evaluation, analysis and comparison, the results indicate that the NPPR model is prevail over the model of (M/M/1): (N/N/FCFS) in real-time performance. And the priorities of the tasks in the system should be given according to their time limit. With the principle of (M/M/1): (N/N/NPPR), if the priority was given to the tasks properly, the satisfied real-time performance will be gotten. The models were tested in forms software and the satisfied result has been gotten in practice.

Identification of fractional-order systems with time delays using block pulse functions

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Yinggan; Li, Ning; Liu, Minmin; Lu, Yao; Wang, Weiwei

2017-07-01

In this paper, a novel method based on block pulse functions is proposed to identify continuous-time fractional-order systems with time delays. First, the operational matrices of block pulse functions for fractional integral operator and time delay operator are derived. Then, these operational matrices are applied to convert the continuous-time fractional-order systems with time delays to an algebraic equation. Finally, the system's parameters along with the differentiation orders and the time delays are all simultaneously estimated through minimizing a quadric error function. The proposed method reduces the computation complexity of the identification process, and also it does not require the system's differentiation orders to be commensurate. The effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated by several numerical examples.

Food Service System

Science.gov (United States)

1992-01-01

The 3M Food Service System 2 employs a "cook/chill" concept for serving food in hospitals. The system allows staff to prepare food well in advance, maintain heat, visual appeal and nutritional value as well as reducing operating costs. The integral heating method, which keeps hot foods hot and cold foods cold, was developed by 3M for the Apollo Program. In the 1970s, the company commercialized the original system and in 1991, introduced Food Service System 2. Dishes are designed to resemble those used at home, and patient satisfaction has been high.

Impact of Distance in the Provision of Maternal Health Care Services and Its Accountability in Murarai-II Block, Birbhum District

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alokananda Ghosh

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The maternal health issue was a part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, Target-5. Now it has been incorporated into Target-3 of 17 points Sustainable Development Goal-2030, declared by the United Nations, 2015. In India, about 50% of newborn deaths can be reduced by taking good care of the mother during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period. This requires timely, well-equipped healthcare by trained providers, along with emergency transportation for referral obstetric emergency. Governments need to ensure physicians in the rural underserved areas. The utilisation of maternal healthcare services (MHCSs depends on both the availability and accessibility of services along with accountability. This study is based on an empirical retrospective survey, also called a historic study, to evaluate the influences of distance on the provision of maternal health services and on its accountability in Murarai-II block, Birbhum District. The major objective of the study is to identify the influence of distance on the provision and accountability of the overall MHCSs. The investigation has found that there is a strong inverse relationship (-0.75 between accessibility index and accountability score with p-value = 0.05. Tracking of pregnant women, identification of high risk pregnancy and timely Postnatal Care (PNC have become the dominant factors of the maternal healthcare services in the first Principal Component Analysis (PCA, explaining 49.67% of the accountability system. Overall, institutional barriers to accessibility are identified as important constraints behind lesser accountability of the services, preventing the anticipated benefit. This study highlights the critical areas where maternal healthcare services are lacking. The analysis has highlighted the importance of physical access to health services in shaping the provision of maternal healthcare services. Drawing on empirical observations of operation of public distribution system in

On Line Service Composition in the Integrated Clinical Environment for eHealth and Medical Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

García-Valls, Marisol; Touahria, Imad Eddine

2017-06-08

Medical and eHealth systems are progressively realized in the context of standardized architectures that support safety and ease the integration of the heterogeneous (and often proprietary) medical devices and sensors. The Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE) architecture appeared recently with the goal of becoming a common framework for defining the structure of the medical applications as concerns the safe integration of medical devices and sensors. ICE is simply a high level architecture that defines the functional blocks that should be part of a medical system to support interoperability. As a result, the underlying communication backbone is broadly undefined as concerns the enabling software technology (including the middleware) and associated algorithms that meet the ICE requirements of the flexible integration of medical devices and services. Supporting the on line composition of services in a medical system is also not part of ICE; however, supporting this behavior would enable flexible orchestration of functions (e.g., addition and/or removal of services and medical equipment) on the fly. iLandis one of the few software technologies that supports on line service composition and reconfiguration, ensuring time-bounded transitions across different service orchestrations; it supports the design, deployment and on line reconfiguration of applications, which this paper applies to service-based eHealth domains. This paper designs the integration between ICE architecture and iLand middleware to enhance the capabilities of ICE with on line service composition and the time-bounded reconfiguration of medical systems based on distributed services. A prototype implementation of a service-based eHealth system for the remote monitoring of patients is described; it validates the enhanced capacity of ICE to support dynamic reconfiguration of the application services. Results show that the temporal cost of the on line reconfiguration of the eHealth application is bounded

A review on past and present development on the interlocking loadbearing hollow block (ILHB) system

Science.gov (United States)

Bosro, M. Z. M.; Samad, A. A. A.; Mohamad, N.; Goh, W. I.; Tambichik, M. A.; Iman, M. A.

2018-04-01

Massive migration and increasing population in Malaysia has contributed to the increasing demand of quality and affordable housing. Over the past 50 years, the Malaysian housing industry has seen the growth of using conventional construction system such as reinforced concrete frame structures and bricks. The conventional system, as agreed by many researchers, causes delays and other disadvantages in some of the construction projects. Thus, the utilization of interlocking loadbearing hollow block (ILHB) system is needed to address these issues. This system has been identified as an alternative and sustainable building system for the construction industry in Malaysia which the PUTRA block system is the latest example of the ILHB developed. The system offers various advantages in terms of speed and cost in construction, strength, environmentally friendly and aesthetic qualities. Despite these advantages, this system has not been practically applied and develop in Malaysia. Therefore, this paper aims to review the past and present development of the interlocking loadbearing hollow block (ILHB) system that available locally and globally.

Testing block subdivision algorithms on block designs

Science.gov (United States)

Wiseman, Natalie; Patterson, Zachary

2016-01-01

Integrated land use-transportation models predict future transportation demand taking into account how households and firms arrange themselves partly as a function of the transportation system. Recent integrated models require parcels as inputs and produce household and employment predictions at the parcel scale. Block subdivision algorithms automatically generate parcel patterns within blocks. Evaluating block subdivision algorithms is done by way of generating parcels and comparing them to those in a parcel database. Three block subdivision algorithms are evaluated on how closely they reproduce parcels of different block types found in a parcel database from Montreal, Canada. While the authors who developed each of the algorithms have evaluated them, they have used their own metrics and block types to evaluate their own algorithms. This makes it difficult to compare their strengths and weaknesses. The contribution of this paper is in resolving this difficulty with the aim of finding a better algorithm suited to subdividing each block type. The proposed hypothesis is that given the different approaches that block subdivision algorithms take, it's likely that different algorithms are better adapted to subdividing different block types. To test this, a standardized block type classification is used that consists of mutually exclusive and comprehensive categories. A statistical method is used for finding a better algorithm and the probability it will perform well for a given block type. Results suggest the oriented bounding box algorithm performs better for warped non-uniform sites, as well as gridiron and fragmented uniform sites. It also produces more similar parcel areas and widths. The Generalized Parcel Divider 1 algorithm performs better for gridiron non-uniform sites. The Straight Skeleton algorithm performs better for loop and lollipop networks as well as fragmented non-uniform and warped uniform sites. It also produces more similar parcel shapes and patterns.

Service systems concepts, modeling, and programming

CERN Document Server

Cardoso, Jorge; Poels, Geert

2014-01-01

This SpringerBrief explores the internal workings of service systems. The authors propose a lightweight semantic model for an effective representation to capture the essence of service systems. Key topics include modeling frameworks, service descriptions and linked data, creating service instances, tool support, and applications in enterprises.Previous books on service system modeling and various streams of scientific developments used an external perspective to describe how systems can be integrated. This brief introduces the concept of white-box service system modeling as an approach to mo

21 CFR 892.5710 - Radiation therapy beam-shaping block.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Radiation therapy beam-shaping block. 892.5710 Section 892.5710 Food and Drugs FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES... block. (a) Identification. A radiation therapy beam-shaping block is a device made of a highly...

Needs assessment under the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant: Massachusetts.

Science.gov (United States)

Guyer, B; Schor, L; Messenger, K P; Prenney, B; Evans, F

1984-09-01

The Massachusetts maternal and child health (MCH) agency has developed a needs assessment process which includes four components: a statistical measure of need based on indirect, proxy health and social indicators; clinical standards for services to be provided; an advisory process which guides decision making and involves constituency groups; and a management system for implementing funds distribution, namely open competitive bidding in response to a Request for Proposals. In Fiscal Years 1982 and 1983, the process was applied statewide in the distribution of primary prenatal (MIC) and pediatric (C&Y) care services and lead poisoning prevention projects. Both processes resulted in clearer definitions of services to be provided under contract to the state as well as redistribution of funds to serve localities that had previously received no resources. Although the needs assessment process does not provide a direct measure of unmet need in a complex system of private and public services, it can be used to advocate for increased MCH funding and guide the distribution of new MCH service dollars.

Service task partition and distribution in star topology computer grid subject to data security constraints

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xiang Yanping [Collaborative Autonomic Computing Laboratory, School of Computer Science, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (China); Levitin, Gregory, E-mail: levitin@iec.co.il [Collaborative Autonomic Computing Laboratory, School of Computer Science, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (China); Israel electric corporation, P. O. Box 10, Haifa 31000 (Israel)

2011-11-15

The paper considers grid computing systems in which the resource management systems (RMS) can divide service tasks into execution blocks (EBs) and send these blocks to different resources. In order to provide a desired level of service reliability the RMS can assign the same blocks to several independent resources for parallel execution. The data security is a crucial issue in distributed computing that affects the execution policy. By the optimal service task partition into the EBs and their distribution among resources, one can achieve the greatest possible service reliability and/or expected performance subject to data security constraints. The paper suggests an algorithm for solving this optimization problem. The algorithm is based on the universal generating function technique and on the evolutionary optimization approach. Illustrative examples are presented. - Highlights: > Grid service with star topology is considered. > An algorithm for evaluating service reliability and data security is presented. > A tradeoff between the service reliability and data security is analyzed. > A procedure for optimal service task partition and distribution is suggested.

Service task partition and distribution in star topology computer grid subject to data security constraints

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiang Yanping; Levitin, Gregory

2011-01-01

The paper considers grid computing systems in which the resource management systems (RMS) can divide service tasks into execution blocks (EBs) and send these blocks to different resources. In order to provide a desired level of service reliability the RMS can assign the same blocks to several independent resources for parallel execution. The data security is a crucial issue in distributed computing that affects the execution policy. By the optimal service task partition into the EBs and their distribution among resources, one can achieve the greatest possible service reliability and/or expected performance subject to data security constraints. The paper suggests an algorithm for solving this optimization problem. The algorithm is based on the universal generating function technique and on the evolutionary optimization approach. Illustrative examples are presented. - Highlights: → Grid service with star topology is considered. → An algorithm for evaluating service reliability and data security is presented. → A tradeoff between the service reliability and data security is analyzed. → A procedure for optimal service task partition and distribution is suggested.

Performance of a YSO/LSO detector block for use in a PET/SPECT system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dahlbom, M.; MacDonald, L.R.; Eriksson, L.

1996-01-01

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in using conventional SPECT scintillation cameras for PET imaging, however, the count rate performance is a limiting factor. The modular block detectors used in modem PET systems do not have this limitation. In this work, the performance of a detector block design which would have high resolution and high count rate capabilities in both detection modes is studied. The high light output of LSO (∼5-6 times BGO) would allow the construction of a detector block that would have similar intrinsic resolution characteristics at 140 keV as a conventional high resolution BGO block detector at 511 keV (∼4 mm FWHM). However, the intrinsic radioactivity of LSO prevents the use of this scintillator in single photon counting mode. YSO is a scintillator with higher light output than LSO but worse absorption characteristics than LSO. YSO and LSO could be combined in a phoswich detector block, where YSO is placed in a front layer and is used for low energy (SPECT) imaging and LSO in a second layer is used for PET imaging. Events in the two detector materials can be separated by pulse shape discrimination, since the decay times of the light in YSO and LSO are different (70 and 40 ns, respectively). Although the intrinsic resolution of the block detector with discrete elements is worse than for a NaI camera, this would not be a limiting factor. Simulations of a 20 cm diameter hot spot phantom imaged at different collimator distances using a high resolution collimator and scintillation camera system was compared to a block detector camera. No appreciable difference in resolution was seen in the reconstructed images between the two camera systems, including the ideal situation of zero distance between collimator and phantom

System Performance of Concatenated STBC and Block Turbo Codes in Dispersive Fading Channels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kam Tai Chan

2005-05-01

Full Text Available A new scheme of concatenating the block turbo code (BTC with the space-time block code (STBC for an OFDM system in dispersive fading channels is investigated in this paper. The good error correcting capability of BTC and the large diversity gain characteristics of STBC can be achieved simultaneously. The resulting receiver outperforms the iterative convolutional Turbo receiver with maximum- a-posteriori-probability expectation maximization (MAP-EM algorithm. Because of its ability to perform the encoding and decoding processes in parallel, the proposed system is easy to implement in real time.

A cloud-based production system for information and service integration: an internet of things case study on waste electronics

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xi Vincent; Wang, Lihui

2017-08-01

Cloud computing is the new enabling technology that offers centralised computing, flexible data storage and scalable services. In the manufacturing context, it is possible to utilise the Cloud technology to integrate and provide industrial resources and capabilities in terms of Cloud services. In this paper, a function block-based integration mechanism is developed to connect various types of production resources. A Cloud-based architecture is also deployed to offer a service pool which maintains these resources as production services. The proposed system provides a flexible and integrated information environment for the Cloud-based production system. As a specific type of manufacturing, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) remanufacturing experiences difficulties in system integration, information exchange and resource management. In this research, WEEE is selected as the example of Internet of Things to demonstrate how the obstacles and bottlenecks are overcome with the help of Cloud-based informatics approach. In the case studies, the WEEE recycle/recovery capabilities are also integrated and deployed as flexible Cloud services. Supporting mechanisms and technologies are presented and evaluated towards the end of the paper.

EnviroAtlas - Portland, ME - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 146 block groups in Portland, Maine. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Austin, TX - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 750 block groups in Austin, Texas. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Memphis, TN - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 703 block groups in Memphis, Tennessee. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Pittsburgh, PA - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1,089 block groups in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Carbon attributes, temperature...

EnviroAtlas - Fresno, CA - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 405 block groups in Fresno, California. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Portland, OR - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1176 block groups in Portland, Oregon. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

Photovoltaic conference on system services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burges, Karsten; Freier, Karin; Vincent, Jeremy; Montigny, Marie; Engel, Bernd; Konstanciak, Wilhelm; Makdessi, Georges; Acres, Adrien; Schlaaff, Torsten; Defaix, Christophe

2015-01-01

The French-German office for Renewable energies (OFAEnR) organised a photovoltaic conference on system services and photovoltaic facilities. In the framework of this French-German exchange of experience, about 100 participants have analysed and discussed the regulatory, technical and economical context of system services, their evolution and implementation in the framework of an accelerated development of photovoltaic conversion in both countries. This document brings together the available presentations (slides) made during this event: 1 - Technical Introduction to system services: principles, actors and perspectives (Karsten Burges); 2 - Legal guidelines of EEG (Renewable energy Sources Act) and the System Stability Ordinance as well as future measures for PV grid integration (Karin Freier); 3 - evolution of ancillary services regulation; opening the possibility for new market players to participate in maintaining the system stability (Jeremy Vincent, Marie Montigny); 4 - Paradigm shift for ancillary services: PV as a new stakeholder (Bernd Engel); 5 - Challenges of RES integration (Wilhelm Konstanciak 6 - System services supplied by PV inverters, solutions for frequency and active/reactive power control at the injection point (Georges Makdessi); 7 - Grid disturbance abatement and voltage stability control by monitoring local scale PV production (Adrien Acres); 8 - Flexibly Adaptable Power Plant Controller - The Answer to Various Grid Requirements (Torsten Schlaaff); 9 - ENR-pool project: What kind of business model for ancillary services by PV power plants? (Christophe Defaix)

EnviroAtlas - Paterson, NJ - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 107 block groups in Paterson, New Jersey. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Woodbine, IA - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1 block group in Woodbine, Iowa. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction, pollution...

EnviroAtlas - Durham, NC - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 193 block groups in Durham, North Carolina. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Milwaukee, WI - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1,175 block groups in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Cleveland, OH - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1,442 block groups in Cleveland, Ohio. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

Wind power plant system services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Basit, Abdul; Altin, Müfit

Traditionally, conventional power plants have the task to support the power system, by supplying power balancing services. These services are required by the power system operators in order to secure a safe and reliable operation of the power system. However, as in the future the wind power...... is going more and more to replace conventional power plants, the sources of conventional reserve available to the system will be reduced and fewer conventional plants will be available on-line to share the regulation burden. The reliable operation of highly wind power integrated power system might...... then beat risk unless the wind power plants (WPPs) are able to support and participate in power balancing services. The objective of this PhD project is to develop and analyse control strategies which can increase the WPPs capability to provide system services, such as active power balancing control...

EnviroAtlas - Tampa, FL - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1,833 block groups in Tampa Bay, Florida. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Phoenix, AZ - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 2,434 block groups in Phoenix, Arizona. Carbon attributes, pollution removal and value, and...

Block backstepping design of nonlinear state feedback control law for underactuated mechanical systems

CERN Document Server

Rudra, Shubhobrata; Maitra, Madhubanti

2017-01-01

This book presents a novel, generalized approach to the design of nonlinear state feedback control laws for a large class of underactuated mechanical systems based on application of the block backstepping method. The control law proposed here is robust against the effects of model uncertainty in dynamic and steady-state performance and addresses the issue of asymptotic stabilization for the class of underactuated mechanical systems. An underactuated system is defined as one for which the dimension of space spanned by the configuration vector is greater than that of the space spanned by the control variables. Control problems concerning underactuated systems currently represent an active field of research due to their broad range of applications in robotics, aerospace, and marine contexts. The book derives a generalized theory of block backstepping control design for underactuated mechanical systems, and examines several case studies that cover interesting examples of underactuated mechanical systems. The math...

Closed Loop Guidance Trade Study for Space Launch System Block-1B Vehicle

Science.gov (United States)

Von der Porten, Paul; Ahmad, Naeem; Hawkins, Matt

2018-01-01

NASA is currently building the Space Launch System (SLS) Block-1 launch vehicle for the Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) test flight. The design of the next evolution of SLS, Block-1B, is well underway. The Block-1B vehicle is more capable overall than Block-1; however, the relatively low thrust-to-weight ratio of the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) presents a challenge to the Powered Explicit Guidance (PEG) algorithm used by Block-1. To handle the long burn durations (on the order of 1000 seconds) of EUS missions, two algorithms were examined. An alternative algorithm, OPGUID, was introduced, while modifications were made to PEG. A trade study was conducted to select the guidance algorithm for future SLS vehicles. The chosen algorithm needs to support a wide variety of mission operations: ascent burns to LEO, apogee raise burns, trans-lunar injection burns, hyperbolic Earth departure burns, and contingency disposal burns using the Reaction Control System (RCS). Additionally, the algorithm must be able to respond to a single engine failure scenario. Each algorithm was scored based on pre-selected criteria, including insertion accuracy, algorithmic complexity and robustness, extensibility for potential future missions, and flight heritage. Monte Carlo analysis was used to select the final algorithm. This paper covers the design criteria, approach, and results of this trade study, showing impacts and considerations when adapting launch vehicle guidance algorithms to a broader breadth of in-space operations.

Exclusive queueing model including the choice of service windows

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, Masahiro; Yanagisawa, Daichi; Nishinari, Katsuhiro

2018-01-01

In a queueing system involving multiple service windows, choice behavior is a significant concern. This paper incorporates the choice of service windows into a queueing model with a floor represented by discrete cells. We contrived a logit-based choice algorithm for agents considering the numbers of agents and the distances to all service windows. Simulations were conducted with various parameters of agent choice preference for these two elements and for different floor configurations, including the floor length and the number of service windows. We investigated the model from the viewpoint of transit times and entrance block rates. The influences of the parameters on these factors were surveyed in detail and we determined that there are optimum floor lengths that minimize the transit times. In addition, we observed that the transit times were determined almost entirely by the entrance block rates. The results of the presented model are relevant to understanding queueing systems including the choice of service windows and can be employed to optimize facility design and floor management.

Designing for Social Infrastructures in Complex Service Systems: A Human-Centered and Social Systems Perspective on Service Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer

Full Text Available Service design is one of the keys to improving how we target today’s complex societal problems. The predominant view of service systems is mechanistic and linear. A service infrastructure—which includes solutions like service blueprints, scripts, and protocols—is, in some ways, designed to control the behavior of service professionals at the service interface. This view undermines the intrinsic motivation, expertise, and creativity of service professionals. This article presents a different perspective on service design. Using theories of social systems and complex responsive processes, I define service organizations as ongoing iterated patterns of relationships between people, and identify them as complex social service systems. I go on to show how the human-centeredness of design practices contributes to designing for such service systems. In particular, I show how a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of service professionals through phenomenological themes contributes to designing for social infrastructures that support continuous improvement and adaptation of the practices executed by service professionals at the service interface.

An efficient, block-by-block algorithm for inverting a block tridiagonal, nearly block Toeplitz matrix

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reuter, Matthew G; Hill, Judith C

2012-01-01

We present an algorithm for computing any block of the inverse of a block tridiagonal, nearly block Toeplitz matrix (defined as a block tridiagonal matrix with a small number of deviations from the purely block Toeplitz structure). By exploiting both the block tridiagonal and the nearly block Toeplitz structures, this method scales independently of the total number of blocks in the matrix and linearly with the number of deviations. Numerical studies demonstrate this scaling and the advantages of our method over alternatives.

A PMT-Block test bench

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adragna, P.; Antonaki, A.

2006-01-01

The front-end electronics of the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter (Tile Cal) is housed in a unit, called PMT-Block. The PMT-Block is a compact instrument comprising a light mixer, a PMT together with its divider and a 3-in-1 card, which provides shaping, amplification and integration for the signals. This instrument needs to be qualified before being assembled on the detector. A PMT-Block test bench has been developed for this purpose. This test bench is a system which allows fast, albeit accurate enough, measurements of the main properties of a complete PMT-Block. The system, both hardware and software, and the protocol used for the PMT-Blocks characterization are described in detail in this report. The results obtained in the test of about 10 000 PMT-Blocks needed for the instrumentation of the ATLAS (LHC-CERN) hadronic Tile Calorimeter are also reported

A PMT-Block test bench

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Adragna, P [Dipartimento di Fisica ' E.Fermi' , Universita di Pisa and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, Pisa 56127 (Italy); Universita degli studi di Siena, via Roma 56, 53100 Siena (Italy); Antonaki, A [Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications, P.O. Box 17214, Athens 10024 (Greece); National Capodistrian University of Athens, 30 Panepistimiou st., Athens 10679 (Greece)] (and others)

2006-08-01

The front-end electronics of the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter (Tile Cal) is housed in a unit, called PMT-Block. The PMT-Block is a compact instrument comprising a light mixer, a PMT together with its divider and a 3-in-1 card, which provides shaping, amplification and integration for the signals. This instrument needs to be qualified before being assembled on the detector. A PMT-Block test bench has been developed for this purpose. This test bench is a system which allows fast, albeit accurate enough, measurements of the main properties of a complete PMT-Block. The system, both hardware and software, and the protocol used for the PMT-Blocks characterization are described in detail in this report. The results obtained in the test of about 10 000 PMT-Blocks needed for the instrumentation of the ATLAS (LHC-CERN) hadronic Tile Calorimeter are also reported.

Coastal protection using topological interlocking blocks

Science.gov (United States)

Pasternak, Elena; Dyskin, Arcady; Pattiaratchi, Charitha; Pelinovsky, Efim

2013-04-01

The coastal protection systems mainly rely on the self-weight of armour blocks to ensure its stability. We propose a system of interlocking armour blocks, which form plate-shape assemblies. The shape and the position of the blocks are chosen in such a way as to impose kinematic constraints that prevent the blocks from being removed from the assembly. The topological interlocking shapes include simple convex blocks such as platonic solids, the most practical being tetrahedra, cubes and octahedra. Another class of topological interlocking blocks is so-called osteomorphic blocks, which form plate-like assemblies tolerant to random block removal (almost 25% of blocks need to be removed for the assembly to loose integrity). Both classes require peripheral constraint, which can be provided either by the weight of the blocks or post-tensioned internal cables. The interlocking assemblies provide increased stability because lifting one block involves lifting (and bending) the whole assembly. We model the effect of interlocking by introducing an equivalent additional self-weight of the armour blocks. This additional self-weight is proportional to the critical pressure needed to cause bending of the interlocking assembly when it loses stability. Using beam approximation we find an equivalent stability coefficient for interlocking. It is found to be greater than the stability coefficient of a structure with similar blocks without interlocking. In the case when the peripheral constraint is provided by the weight of the blocks and for the slope angle of 45o, the effective stability coefficient for a structure of 100 blocks is 33% higher than the one for a similar structure without interlocking. Further increase in the stability coefficient can be reached by a specially constructed peripheral constraint system, for instance by using post-tension cables.

Normal mode analysis of macromolecular systems with the mobile block Hessian method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghysels, An; Van Speybroeck, Veronique; Van Neck, Dimitri; Waroquier, Michel; Brooks, Bernard R.

2015-01-01

Until recently, normal mode analysis (NMA) was limited to small proteins, not only because the required energy minimization is a computationally exhausting task, but also because NMA requires the expensive diagonalization of a 3N a ×3N a matrix with N a the number of atoms. A series of simplified models has been proposed, in particular the Rotation-Translation Blocks (RTB) method by Tama et al. for the simulation of proteins. It makes use of the concept that a peptide chain or protein can be seen as a subsequent set of rigid components, i.e. the peptide units. A peptide chain is thus divided into rigid blocks with six degrees of freedom each. Recently we developed the Mobile Block Hessian (MBH) method, which in a sense has similar features as the RTB method. The main difference is that MBH was developed to deal with partially optimized systems. The position/orientation of each block is optimized while the internal geometry is kept fixed at a plausible - but not necessarily optimized - geometry. This reduces the computational cost of the energy minimization. Applying the standard NMA on a partially optimized structure however results in spurious imaginary frequencies and unwanted coordinate dependence. The MBH avoids these unphysical effects by taking into account energy gradient corrections. Moreover the number of variables is reduced, which facilitates the diagonalization of the Hessian. In the original implementation of MBH, atoms could only be part of one rigid block. The MBH is now extended to the case where atoms can be part of two or more blocks. Two basic linkages can be realized: (1) blocks connected by one link atom, or (2) by two link atoms, where the latter is referred to as the hinge type connection. In this work we present the MBH concept and illustrate its performance with the crambin protein as an example

Measuring the health systems impact of disease control programmes: a critical reflection on the WHO building blocks framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Mounier-Jack, Sandra; Griffiths, Ulla K; Closser, Svea; Burchett, Helen; Marchal, Bruno

2014-03-25

The WHO health systems Building Blocks framework has become ubiquitous in health systems research. However, it was not developed as a research instrument, but rather to facilitate investments of resources in health systems. In this paper, we reflect on the advantages and limitations of using the framework in applied research, as experienced in three empirical vaccine studies we have undertaken. We argue that while the Building Blocks framework is valuable because of its simplicity and ability to provide a common language for researchers, it is not suitable for analysing dynamic, complex and inter-linked systems impacts. In our three studies, we found that the mechanical segmentation of effects by the WHO building blocks, without recognition of their interactions, hindered the understanding of impacts on systems as a whole. Other important limitations were the artificial equal weight given to each building block and the challenge in capturing longer term effects and opportunity costs. Another criticism is not of the framework per se, but rather how it is typically used, with a focus on the six building blocks to the neglect of the dynamic process and outcome aspects of health systems.We believe the framework would be improved by making three amendments: integrating the missing "demand" component; incorporating an overarching, holistic health systems viewpoint and including scope for interactions between components. If researchers choose to use the Building Blocks framework, we recommend that it be adapted to the specific study question and context, with formative research and piloting conducted in order to inform this adaptation. As with frameworks in general, the WHO Building Blocks framework is valuable because it creates a common language and shared understanding. However, for applied research, it falls short of what is needed to holistically evaluate the impact of specific interventions on health systems. We propose that if researchers use the framework, it

Performance evaluation of block-diagonal preconditioners for the divergence-conforming B-spline discretization of the Stokes system

KAUST Repository

Cô rtes, A.M.A.; Coutinho, A.L.G.A.; Dalcin, L.; Calo, Victor M.

2015-01-01

The recently introduced divergence-conforming B-spline discretizations allow the construction of smooth discrete velocity–pressure pairs for viscous incompressible flows that are at the same time inf-sup stable and pointwise divergence-free. When applied to discretized Stokes equations, these spaces generate a symmetric and indefinite saddle-point linear system. Krylov subspace methods are usually the most efficient procedures to solve such systems. One of such methods, for symmetric systems, is the Minimum Residual Method (MINRES). However, the efficiency and robustness of Krylov subspace methods is closely tied to appropriate preconditioning strategies. For the discrete Stokes system, in particular, block-diagonal strategies provide efficient preconditioners. In this article, we compare the performance of block-diagonal preconditioners for several block choices. We verify how the eigenvalue clustering promoted by the preconditioning strategies affects MINRES convergence. We also compare the number of iterations and wall-clock timings. We conclude that among the building blocks we tested, the strategy with relaxed inner conjugate gradients preconditioned with incomplete Cholesky provided the best results.

Performance evaluation of block-diagonal preconditioners for the divergence-conforming B-spline discretization of the Stokes system

KAUST Repository

Côrtes, A.M.A.

2015-02-20

The recently introduced divergence-conforming B-spline discretizations allow the construction of smooth discrete velocity–pressure pairs for viscous incompressible flows that are at the same time inf-sup stable and pointwise divergence-free. When applied to discretized Stokes equations, these spaces generate a symmetric and indefinite saddle-point linear system. Krylov subspace methods are usually the most efficient procedures to solve such systems. One of such methods, for symmetric systems, is the Minimum Residual Method (MINRES). However, the efficiency and robustness of Krylov subspace methods is closely tied to appropriate preconditioning strategies. For the discrete Stokes system, in particular, block-diagonal strategies provide efficient preconditioners. In this article, we compare the performance of block-diagonal preconditioners for several block choices. We verify how the eigenvalue clustering promoted by the preconditioning strategies affects MINRES convergence. We also compare the number of iterations and wall-clock timings. We conclude that among the building blocks we tested, the strategy with relaxed inner conjugate gradients preconditioned with incomplete Cholesky provided the best results.

Performance Monitoring Framework for Service Oriented System Lifecycle

OpenAIRE

Masood , Tehreem; Cherifi , Chantal; Moalla , Néjib

2016-01-01

International audience; Service oriented systems are highly dynamic systems composed of several web services. One of the most important challenges in service oriented systems is to deliver acceptable quality of service. For this purpose, it is required to monitor quality of service along different activities of service oriented system. Existing research focuses on specific activities but do not take into account all the activities of service oriented system together at the infrastructure leve...

A tandem queue with server slow-down and blocking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Foreest, N.D.; van Ommeren, Jan C.W.; Mandjes, M.R.H.; Scheinhardt, Willem R.W.

2005-01-01

We consider two variants of a two-station tandem network with blocking. In both variants the first server ceases to work when the queue length at the second station hits a 'blocking threshold.' In addition, in variant 2 the first server decreases its service rate when the second queue exceeds a

A tandem queue with server slow-down and blocking.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Foreest, N.; van Ommeren, J.C.; Mandjes, M.R.H.; Scheinhardt, W.

2005-01-01

We consider two variants of a two-station tandem network with blocking. In both variants the first server ceases to work when the queue length at the second station hits a 'blocking threshold.' In addition, in variant 2 the first server decreases its service rate when the second queue exceeds a

NPP service life management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elagin, Yu.P.

2001-01-01

Problems of NPP service life management and service life prolongation are reviewed. Methods for the prolongation of the French NPP service life are discussed, priority directions of nuclear block service life management in regard to aging in the context of the European program of investigation into the materials aging are identified. Questions of the provision of the 60 years service life of the Mihama 1 block (Japan) and decision of the problem of the control equipment aging in Great Britain are discussed. Situation with the prolongation of licenses on the NPP operation in the USA and Spain is considered [ru

Possibilities of utilizing solar systems for heating the hot service water in Košice build-up areas KVP and Ťahanovce

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Horbaj

2005-12-01

Full Text Available A production of „HSW“ in block of flats areas by solar collectors means a real alternative to the traditional way of heating by fossil fuels (coal, gas. With this method, it’s possible to save ca. 50 % of energy from the net of the central service of the heat, what can reduce the production of pollutants in the locality, or it can enable to increase the quantity of customers without claims for the restructuralization of the central source. Because Slovakia is the producer of quality solar collectors it’s suitable to use them just for this reason, which could be projected into the price reduction of relatively expensive present systems. On the other side, when using the flat roofs on the block of flats, other useful places are hot occupied and the heating source is nearby the place of it sconsumption. In this case, a collaboration of the solar system and the Central Service of Heat is especially suitable in time with a shortage of the solar radiation.

NASA Customer Data and Operations System

Science.gov (United States)

Butler, Madeline J.; Stallings, William H.

1991-01-01

In addition to the currently provided NASA services such as Communications and Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System services, the NASA's Customer Data and Operations System (CDOS) will provide the following services to the user: Data Delivery Service, Data Archive Service, and CDOS Operations Management Service. This paper describes these services in detail and presents respective block diagrams. The CDOS services will support a variety of multipurpose missions simultaneously with centralized and common hardware and software data-driven systems.

Effective System for Automatic Bundle Block Adjustment and Ortho Image Generation from Multi Sensor Satellite Imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Akilan, A.; Nagasubramanian, V.; Chaudhry, A.; Reddy, D. Rajesh; Sudheer Reddy, D.; Usha Devi, R.; Tirupati, T.; Radhadevi, P. V.; Varadan, G.

2014-11-01

Block Adjustment is a technique for large area mapping for images obtained from different remote sensingsatellites.The challenge in this process is to handle huge number of satellite imageries from different sources with different resolution and accuracies at the system level. This paper explains a system with various tools and techniques to effectively handle the end-to-end chain in large area mapping and production with good level of automation and the provisions for intuitive analysis of final results in 3D and 2D environment. In addition, the interface for using open source ortho and DEM references viz., ETM, SRTM etc. and displaying ESRI shapes for the image foot-prints are explained. Rigorous theory, mathematical modelling, workflow automation and sophisticated software engineering tools are included to ensure high photogrammetric accuracy and productivity. Major building blocks like Georeferencing, Geo-capturing and Geo-Modelling tools included in the block adjustment solution are explained in this paper. To provide optimal bundle block adjustment solution with high precision results, the system has been optimized in many stages to exploit the full utilization of hardware resources. The robustness of the system is ensured by handling failure in automatic procedure and saving the process state in every stage for subsequent restoration from the point of interruption. The results obtained from various stages of the system are presented in the paper.

The science of service systems

CERN Document Server

Demirkan, Haluk; Krishna, Vikas

2011-01-01

This book presents a multidisciplinary and multisectoral perspective on the nature of service systems, on research and practice in service and on the future directions to advance service science.  It offers theory-based research with actionable results.

Brief Announcement: ZeroBlock: Timestamp-Free Prevention of Block-Withholding Attack in Bitcoin

OpenAIRE

Solat , Siamak; Potop-Butucaru , Maria

2017-01-01

International audience; Bitcoin was recently introduced as a peer-to-peer electronic currency in order to facilitate transactions outside the traditional financial system. The core of Bitcoin, the Blockchain, is the history of the transactions in the system maintained by all miners as a distributed shared register. New blocks in the Blockchain contain the last transactions in the system and are added by miners after a block mining process that consists in solving a resource consuming proof-of...

Designing and Implementing Service Learning Projects in an Introductory Oceanography Course Using the ``8-Block Model''

Science.gov (United States)

Laine, E. P.; Field, C.

2010-12-01

The Campus Compact for New Hampshire (Gordon, 2003) introduced a practical model for designing service-learning exercises or components for new or existing courses. They divided the design and implementation process into eight concrete areas, the “8-Block Model”. Their goal was to demystify the design process of service learning courses by breaking it down into interconnected components. These components include: project design, community partner relations, the problem statement, building community in the classroom, building student capacity, project management, assessment of learning, and reflection and connections. The project design component of the “8-Block Model” asks that the service performed be consistent with the learning goals of the course. For science courses students carry out their work as a way of learning science and the process of science, not solely for the sake of service. Their work supports the goals of a community partner and the community partner poses research problems for the class in a letter on their letterhead. Linking student work to important problems in the community effectively engages students and encourages them to work at more sophisticated levels than usually seen in introductory science classes. Using team-building techniques, the classroom becomes a safe, secure learning environment that encourages sharing and experimentation. Targeted lectures, labs, and demonstrations build the capacity of students to do their research. Behind the scenes project management ensures student success. Learning is assessed using a variety of tools, including graded classroom presentations, poster sessions, and presentations and reports to community partners. Finally, students reflect upon their work and make connections between their research and its importance to the well being of the community. Over the past 10 years, we have used this approach to design and continually modify an introductory oceanography course for majors and non

Service models for remote healthcare monitoring systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Moorman, Bridget A

2010-01-01

These scenarios reflect where the future is heading for remote health monitoring technology and service expectations. Being able to manage a "system of systems" with timely service hand-off over seams of responsibility and system interfaces will become very important for a BMET or clinical engineer. These interfaces will include patient homes, clinician homes, commercial/civilian infrastructure, public utilities, vendor infrastructure as well as internal departmental domains. Concurrently, technology is changing rapidly resulting in newer software delivery modes and hardware appliances as well as infrastructure changes. Those who are able to de-construct the complex systems and identify infrastructure assumptions and seams of servicing responsibility will be able to better understand and communicate the expectations for service of these systems. Moreover, as identified in Case 1, prodigious use of underlying system monitoring tools (managing the "meta-data") could move servicing of these remote systems from a reactive approach to a proactive approach. A prepared healthcare organization will identify their current and proposed future service combination use cases and design service philosophies and expectations for those use cases, while understanding the infrastructure assumptions and seams of responsibility. This is the future of technical service to the healthcare clinicians and patients.

EnviroAtlas - New Bedford, MA - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 128 block group in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Carbon attributes, temperature...

Block Copolymer Modified Epoxy Amine System for Reactive Rotational Molding: Structures, Properties and Processability

Science.gov (United States)

Lecocq, Eva; Nony, Fabien; Tcharkhtchi, Abbas; Gérard, Jean-François

2011-05-01

Poly(styrene-butadiene-methylmethacrylate) (SBM) and poly(methylmethacrylate-butyle-acrylate-methylmethacrylate) (MAM) triblock copolymers have been dissolved in liquid DGEBA epoxy resin which is subsequently polymerized by meta-xylene diamine (MXDA) or Jeffamine EDR-148. A chemorheology study of these formulations by plate-plate rheology and by thermal analysis has allowed to conclude that the addition of these copolymer blocks improve the reactive rotational moulding processability without affecting the processing time. Indeed, it prevents the pooling of the formulation at the bottom of the mould and a too rapid build up of resin viscosity of these thermosetting systems. The morphology of the cured blends examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows an increase of fracture surface area and thereby a potential increase of the toughness with the modification of epoxy system. Dynamic mechanical spectroscopy (DMA) and opalescence of final material show that the block PMMA, initially miscible, is likely to induce phase separation from the epoxy-amine matrix. Thereby, the poor compatibilisation between the toughener and the matrix has a detrimental effect on the tensile mechanical properties. The compatibilisation has to be increased to improve in synergy the processability and the final properties of these block copolymer modified formulations. First attempts could be by adapting the length and ratio of each block.

EnviroAtlas - Green Bay, WI - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 155 block groups in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

EnviroAtlas - Des Moines, IA - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 312 block groups in Des Moines, IA. Carbon attributes, temperature reduction,...

Teleradiology system analysis using a discrete event-driven block-oriented network simulator

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, Brent K.; Dwyer, Samuel J., III

1992-07-01

Performance evaluation and trade-off analysis are the central issues in the design of communication networks. Simulation plays an important role in computer-aided design and analysis of communication networks and related systems, allowing testing of numerous architectural configurations and fault scenarios. We are using the Block Oriented Network Simulator (BONeS, Comdisco, Foster City, CA) software package to perform discrete, event- driven Monte Carlo simulations in capacity planning, tradeoff analysis and evaluation of alternate architectures for a high-speed, high-resolution teleradiology project. A queuing network model of the teleradiology system has been devise, simulations executed and results analyzed. The wide area network link uses a switched, dial-up N X 56 kbps inverting multiplexer where the number of digital voice-grade lines (N) can vary from one (DS-0) through 24 (DS-1). The proposed goal of such a system is 200 films (2048 X 2048 X 12-bit) transferred between a remote and local site in an eight hour period with a mean delay time less than five minutes. It is found that: (1) the DS-1 service limit is around 100 films per eight hour period with a mean delay time of 412 +/- 39 seconds, short of the goal stipulated above; (2) compressed video teleconferencing can be run simultaneously with image data transfer over the DS-1 wide area network link without impacting the performance of the described teleradiology system; (3) there is little sense in upgrading to a higher bandwidth WAN link like DS-2 or DS-3 for the current system; and (4) the goal of transmitting 200 films in an eight hour period with a mean delay time less than five minutes can be achieved simply if the laser printer interface is updated from the current DR-11W interface to a much faster SCSI interface.

Signal-Conditioning Block of a 1 × 200 CMOS Detector Array for a Terahertz Real-Time Imaging System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jong-Ryul Yang

2016-03-01

Full Text Available A signal conditioning block of a 1 × 200 Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS detector array is proposed to be employed with a real-time 0.2 THz imaging system for inspecting large areas. The plasmonic CMOS detector array whose pixel size including an integrated antenna is comparable to the wavelength of the THz wave for the imaging system, inevitably carries wide pixel-to-pixel variation. To make the variant outputs from the array uniform, the proposed signal conditioning block calibrates the responsivity of each pixel by controlling the gate bias of each detector and the voltage gain of the lock-in amplifiers in the block. The gate bias of each detector is modulated to 1 MHz to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the imaging system via the electrical modulation by the conditioning block. In addition, direct current (DC offsets of the detectors in the array are cancelled by initializing the output voltage level from the block. Real-time imaging using the proposed signal conditioning block is demonstrated by obtaining images at the rate of 19.2 frame-per-sec of an object moving on the conveyor belt with a scan width of 20 cm and a scan speed of 25 cm/s.

[Health services research for the public health service (PHS) and the public health system].

Science.gov (United States)

Hollederer, A; Wildner, M

2015-03-01

There is a great need for health services research in the public health system and in the German public health service. However, the public health service is underrepresented in health services research in Germany. This has several structural, historical and disciplinary-related reasons. The public health service is characterised by a broad range of activities, high qualification requirements and changing framework conditions. The concept of health services research is similar to that of the public health service and public health system, because it includes the principles of multidisciplinarity, multiprofessionalism and daily routine orientation. This article focuses on a specified system theory based model of health services research for the public health system and public health service. The model is based on established models of the health services research and health system research, which are further developed according to specific requirements of the public health service. It provides a theoretical foundation for health services research on the macro-, meso- and microlevels in public health service and the public health system. Prospects for public health service are seen in the development from "old public health" to "new public health" as well as in the integration of health services research and health system research. There is a significant potential for development in a better linkage between university research and public health service as is the case for the "Pettenkofer School of Public Health Munich". © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

49 CFR 236.708 - Block.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Block. 236.708 Section 236.708 Transportation... OF SIGNAL AND TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND APPLIANCES Definitions § 236.708 Block. A length of track of defined limits, the use of which by trains is governed by block signals, cab signals, or both. ...

Classification of ERP System Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petr Sodomka

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Today the ERP business information systems are an essential tool for organization management, regardless of size and field of activity. Their successful implementation and use is conditioned predominantly by IS/ICT knowledge and managerial skills required for directing their life cycle correctly. Defining and correct setting of the service level is a key requirement and skill, usually provided by a service provider based on an implementation and service contract, or an advisory organization, in particular when presale services concerning analyses and tender documentation processing are provided. The following paper discusses the characteristics of the individual service types and the particulars of their practical use. Moreover, it presents the selected significant results of the long-term research performed by the authors in the Center for inVestigations into Information Systems.

EnviroAtlas - New York, NY - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 6,378 block groups in New York City, New York. Carbon attributes, temperature...

Validation of 31 of the most commonly used immunohistochemical antibodies in cytology prepared using the Cellient(®) automated cell block system.

Science.gov (United States)

Montgomery, Eric; Gao, Chen; de Luca, Julie; Bower, Jessie; Attwood, Kristropher; Ylagan, Lourdes

2014-12-01

The Cellient(®) cell block system has become available as an alternative, partially automated method to create cell blocks in cytology. We sought to show a validation method for immunohistochemical (IHC) staining on the Cellient cell block system (CCB) in comparison with the formalin fixed paraffin embedded traditional cell block (TCB). Immunohistochemical staining was performed using 31 antibodies on 38 patient samples for a total of 326 slides. Split samples were processed using both methods by following the Cellient(®) manufacturer's recommendations for the Cellient cell block (CCB) and the Histogel method for preparing the traditional cell block (TCB). Interpretation was performed by three pathologists and two cytotechnologists. Immunohistochemical stains were scored as: 0/1+ (negative) and 2/3+ (positive). Inter-rater agreement for each antibody was evaluated for CCB and TCB, as well as the intra-rater agreement between TCB and CCB between observers. Interobserver staining concordance for the TCB was obtained with statistical significance (P Cellient system are reliable and concordant with stains performed on the same split samples processed via a formalin fixed-paraffin embedded (FFPE) block. The Cellient system is a welcome adjunct to cytology work-flow by producing cell block material of sufficient quality to allow the use of routine IHC. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Design Flaws and Service System Breakdowns: Learning from Systems Thinking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Ing

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In what ways might systems thinking be helpful to designers?  In the 21st century, the types of project with which designers have become engaged has expanded to include service systems.  Service systems are typically composites of mechanisms, organisms, human beings and ecologies.  Systems thinking is a perspective with theories, methods and practices that enables transcending disciplinary boundaries.  Application of systems thinking in designing a service system can aid in surfacing potential flaws and/or anticipating future breakdowns in functions, structures and/or processes. Designers and systems thinkers should work together to improve the nature of service systems.  As a starter set into these conversations, seven conditions are proposed as a starting context.  These conditions are presented neither as rigourously defined nor as exhaustive, but as an entry point into future joint engagement.

PEO-related block copolymer surfactants

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, K.

2001-01-01

Non-ionic block copolymer systems based on hydrophilic poly(ethylene oxide) and more hydrophobic co-polymer blocks are used intensively in a variety of industrial and personal applications. A brief description on the applications is presented. The physical properties of more simple model systems...... of such PEG-based block copolymers in aqueous suspensions are reviewed. Based on scattering experiments using either X-ray or neutrons, the phase behavior is characterized, showing that the thermo-reversible gelation is a result of micellar ordering into mesoscopic crystalline phases of cubic, hexagonal...

DySOA : Making service systems self-adaptive

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Siljee, J; Bosloper, [No Value; Nijhuis, J; Hammer, D; Benatallah, B; Casati, F; Traverso, P

2005-01-01

Service-centric systems exist in a very dynamic environment. This requires these systems to adapt at runtime in order to keep fulfilling their QoS. In order to create self-adaptive service systems, developers should not only design the service architecture, but also need to design the

On a computer implementation of the block Gauss–Seidel method for normal systems of equations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander I. Zhdanov

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on the modification of the block option Gauss-Seidel method for normal systems of equations, which is a sufficiently effective method of solving generally overdetermined, systems of linear algebraic equations of high dimensionality. The main disadvantage of methods based on normal equations systems is the fact that the condition number of the normal system is equal to the square of the condition number of the original problem. This fact has a negative impact on the rate of convergence of iterative methods based on normal equations systems. To increase the speed of convergence of iterative methods based on normal equations systems, for solving ill-conditioned problems currently different preconditioners options are used that reduce the condition number of the original system of equations. However, universal preconditioner for all applications does not exist. One of the effective approaches that improve the speed of convergence of the iterative Gauss–Seidel method for normal systems of equations, is to use its version of the block. The disadvantage of the block Gauss–Seidel method for production systems is the fact that it is necessary to calculate the pseudoinverse matrix for each iteration. We know that finding the pseudoinverse is a difficult computational procedure. In this paper, we propose a procedure to replace the matrix pseudo-solutions to the problem of normal systems of equations by Cholesky. Normal equations arising at each iteration of Gauss–Seidel method, have a relatively low dimension compared to the original system. The results of numerical experimentation demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach are given.

Voluntary Service System (VSS)

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Veterans Affairs — Voluntary Service System (VSS) is a national-level application which replaced the site-based Voluntary Timekeeping System (VTK). VTK was used for many years at the...

Innovation in Extraterrestrial Service Systems - A Challenge for Service Science

Science.gov (United States)

Bergner, David

2010-01-01

This presentation was prepared at the invitation of Professor Yukio Ohsawa, Department of Systems Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, for delivery at the International Workshop on Innovating Service Systems, sponsored by the Japanese Society of Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) as part of the JSAI Internation Symposium on AI, 2010. It offers several challenges for Service Science and Service Innovation. the goal of the presentation is to stimulate thinking about how service systems viII evolve in the future, as human society advances from its terrestrial base toward a permanent presence in space. First we will consider the complexity of the International Space Station (ISS) as it is today, with particular emphasis of its research facilities, and focus on a current challenge - to maximize the utilization of ISS research facilities for the benefit of society. After briefly reviewing the basic principles of Service Science, we will discuss the potential application of Service Innovation methodology to this challenge. Then we viII consider how game-changing technologies - in particular Synthetic Biology - could accelerate the pace of sociocultural evolution and consequently, the progression of human society into space. We will use this provocative vision to advance thinking about how the emerging field of Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME) might help us anticipate and better handle the challenges of this inevitable evolutionary process.

EnviroAtlas Community Block Group Metrics Web Service

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas web service supports research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas). This web service includes...

Change Around the Block?

Science.gov (United States)

Berlin, Joey

2017-04-01

Proponents of a block grant or per-capita cap trumpet them as vehicles for the federal government to give the states a capped amount of funding for Medicaid that legislatures would effectively distribute how they see fit. Questions abound as to what capped Medicaid funding would look like, and what effect it would have on the current Medicaid-eligible population, covered services, and physician payments.

A Runtime System for Interactive Web Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brabrand, Claus; Møller, Anders; Sandholm, Anders

1999-01-01

Interactive web services are increasingly replacing traditional static web pages. Producing web services seems to require a tremendous amount of laborious low-level coding due to the primitive nature of CGI programming. We present ideas for an improved runtime system for interactive web services ...... built on top of CGI running on virtually every combination of browser and HTTP/CGI server. The runtime system has been implemented and used extensively in , a tool for producing interactive web services.......Interactive web services are increasingly replacing traditional static web pages. Producing web services seems to require a tremendous amount of laborious low-level coding due to the primitive nature of CGI programming. We present ideas for an improved runtime system for interactive web services...

Developing the basic building blocks of mathematics to be employed in practical embedded systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tickle, A J; Harvey, P K; Smith, J S [Intelligence Engineering and Industrial Automation Research Group, Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ (United Kingdom); Wu, F, E-mail: a.j.tickle@liverpool.ac.u [RF Engines Ltd, Innovation Centre, St. Cross Business Park, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 5WB (United Kingdom)

2009-07-01

Mathematics is vitally important as it is used in many areas of science and engineering, in particular are functions such as sine, cosine and the exponent in addition to being to able to carry out such tasks as decimal division. The sine wave is vitally important in physics and communications due to its ability to retain its waveshape when added to another sine wave of the same frequency and arbitrary phase. It is the only periodic waveform that has this property and leads to techniques such as Fourier analysis. Unfortunately these blocks are not included in the standard DSP Builder blockset in Simulink and so a method of creating these operations must be created if this methodology is to be employed in real world tasks such as power relay protection and stereo vision systems. Shown here is a method of performing these calculations using the limited blocks provided for a 50-bit based embedded system with a discussion about the accuracy when compared to traditional digital system counterparts. The order of the equations used and the scaling factors of the blocks are investigated to provide evidence of why certain values need to be changed depending upon the calculation being performed.

Developing the basic building blocks of mathematics to be employed in practical embedded systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tickle, A J; Harvey, P K; Smith, J S; Wu, F

2009-01-01

Mathematics is vitally important as it is used in many areas of science and engineering, in particular are functions such as sine, cosine and the exponent in addition to being to able to carry out such tasks as decimal division. The sine wave is vitally important in physics and communications due to its ability to retain its waveshape when added to another sine wave of the same frequency and arbitrary phase. It is the only periodic waveform that has this property and leads to techniques such as Fourier analysis. Unfortunately these blocks are not included in the standard DSP Builder blockset in Simulink and so a method of creating these operations must be created if this methodology is to be employed in real world tasks such as power relay protection and stereo vision systems. Shown here is a method of performing these calculations using the limited blocks provided for a 50-bit based embedded system with a discussion about the accuracy when compared to traditional digital system counterparts. The order of the equations used and the scaling factors of the blocks are investigated to provide evidence of why certain values need to be changed depending upon the calculation being performed.

Block Access Token Renewal Scheme Based on Secret Sharing in Apache Hadoop

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Su-Hyun Kim

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In a cloud computing environment, user data is encrypted and stored using a large number of distributed servers. Global Internet service companies such as Google and Yahoo have recognized the importance of Internet service platforms and conducted their own research and development to utilize large cluster-based cloud computing platform technologies based on low-cost commercial off-the-shelf nodes. Accordingly, as various data services are now allowed over a distributed computing environment, distributed management of big data has become a major issue. On the other hand, security vulnerability and privacy infringement due to malicious attackers or internal users can occur by means of various usage types of big data. In particular, various security vulnerabilities can occur in the block access token, which is used for the permission control of data blocks in Hadoop. To solve this problem, we have proposed a weight-applied XOR-based efficient distribution storage and recovery scheme in this paper. In particular, various security vulnerabilities can occur in the block access token, which is used for the permission control of data blocks in Hadoop. In this paper, a secret sharing-based block access token management scheme is proposed to overcome such security vulnerabilities.

Adaptability of the Logistics System in National Economic Mobilization Based on Blocking Flow Theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiangyuan Jing

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In the process of national economic mobilization, the logistics system usually suffers from negative impact and/or threats of such emergency events as wars and accidents, which implies that adaptability of the logistics system directly determines realization of economic mobilization. And where the real-time rescue operation is concerned, heavy traffic congestion is likely to cause a great loss of or damage to human beings and their properties. To deal with this situation, this article constructs a blocking-resistance optimum model and an optimum restructuring model based on blocking flow theories, of which both are illustrated by numerical cases and compared in characteristics and application. The design of these two models is expected to eliminate or alleviate the congestion situation occurring in the logistics system, thus effectively enhancing its adaptability in the national economic mobilization process.

Composition of Web Services Using Wrappers

Science.gov (United States)

Haidar, Ali Nasrat; Abdallah, Ali E.

Web services (WSs) compositions deal with specifying how to assemble a complex WS system from elementary services. These services can be provided on the Web by third parties as WSs, COTS, or bespoke components. Wrappers are becoming the norm for customising existing components in order to integrate them into larger WS systems. In many cases, using a component "as-is" is very unlikely to occur. A component has to be customized because of, for example, incompatibilities between the interfaces of components that need to communicate with one another, need for extra security features, or, blocking unneeded functionality. This paper presents an approach for modeling several wrapping techniques that can be used for composing WS application using Hoare's CSP process algebra.

Block preconditioners for linear systems arising from multiscale collocation with compactly supported RBFs

KAUST Repository

Farrell, Patricio; Pestana, Jennifer

2015-01-01

. However, the benefit of a guaranteed symmetric positive definite block system comes at a high computational cost. This cost can be alleviated somewhat by considering compactly supported RBFs and a multiscale technique. But the condition number and sparsity

26 CFR 48.6427-10 - Kerosene; claims by registered ultimate vendors (blocked pumps).

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... (blocked pumps). 48.6427-10 Section 48.6427-10 Internal Revenue INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE...; claims by registered ultimate vendors (blocked pumps). (a) Overview. This section provides rules under... allowed by section 6427(l)(5)(B)(i). These claims relate to kerosene sold from a blocked pump. Claims...

Block Gas Sol Unit in Haderslev

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vejen, Niels Kristian

2000-01-01

Investigation of a SDHW system based on a Block Gas Sol Unit from Baxi A/S installed by a consumer i Haderslev, Denmark.......Investigation of a SDHW system based on a Block Gas Sol Unit from Baxi A/S installed by a consumer i Haderslev, Denmark....

Coordination of system needs and provision of services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Henrik; Hansen, Lars Henrik; Jóhannsson, Hjörtur

2013-01-01

This paper addresses a challenge associated with large scale deployment of distributed energy resources (DER) to provide system services in future sustainable power systems; namely how to prioritize conflicting interests in a service provided by a DER. For that purpose, different services utilizing...... the DER in a future system are identified as well as potentially conflicting interests between services. A scheme is suggested for how conflicting interests should be prioritized based on considerations regarding the nature of the service and the system operating state at the time of the service request....... Examples are provided for illustrating the functionality of the scheme....

Common blocks for ASQS(12

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorenzo Milazzo

1997-05-01

Full Text Available An ASQS(v is a particular Steiner system featuring a set of v vertices and two separate families of blocks, B and G, whose elements have a respective cardinality of 4 and 6. It has the property that any three vertices of X belong either to a B-block or to a G-block. The parameter cb is the number of common blocks in two separate ASQSs, both defined on the same set of vertices X . In this paper it is shown that cb ≤ 29 for any pair of ASQSs(12.

Influence of additional heat exchanger block on directional solidification system for growing multi-crystalline silicon ingot - A simulation investigation

Science.gov (United States)

Nagarajan, S. G.; Srinivasan, M.; Aravinth, K.; Ramasamy, P.

2018-04-01

Transient simulation has been carried out for analyzing the heat transfer properties of Directional Solidification (DS) furnace. The simulation results revealed that the additional heat exchanger block under the bottom insulation on the DS furnace has enhanced the control of solidification of the silicon melt. Controlled Heat extraction rate during the solidification of silicon melt is requisite for growing good quality ingots which has been achieved by the additional heat exchanger block. As an additional heat exchanger block, the water circulating plate has been placed under the bottom insulation. The heat flux analysis of DS system and the temperature distribution studies of grown ingot confirm that the established additional heat exchanger block on the DS system gives additional benefit to the mc-Si ingot.

Management systems for service providers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bolokonya, Herbert Chiwalo

2015-02-01

In the field of radiation safety and protection there are a number of institutions that are involved in achieving different goals and strategies. These strategies and objectives are achieved based on a number of tools and systems, one of these tools and systems is the use of a management system. This study aimed at reviewing the management system concept for Technical Service Providers in the field of radiation safety and protection. The main focus was on personal monitoring services provided by personal dosimetry laboratories. A number of key issues were found to be prominent to make the management system efficient. These are laboratory accreditation, approval; having a customer driven operating criteria; and controlling of records and good reporting. (au)

Improving of enterprise consumer service system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yа.М. Laguta

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The problems of consumer services at domestic enterprises are showed. The shortcomings in the service of enterprise operation are analyzed. The basic features of the functioning of the service system forming medium are determined. The authors develop the measures to improve the quality of services which can contribute to their development, expansion of the customer base, increase in sales volume (goods and services as well as improving efficiency and profitability. Taking into account the current environment of enterprises the proposed measures are formed. The article proves the expediency of the use of the client-oriented approach to a customer, the use of software programs and the improvement of the CRM-system at enterprises, the introduction of «7P» concept.

A randomized trial comparing surgeon-administered intraoperative transversus abdominis plane block with anesthesiologist-administered transcutaneous block.

Science.gov (United States)

Narasimhulu, D M; Scharfman, L; Minkoff, H; George, B; Homel, P; Tyagaraj, K

2018-04-27

Injection of local anesthetic into the transversus abdominis plane (TAP block) decreases systemic morphine requirements after abdominal surgery. We compared intraoperative surgeon-administered TAP block (surgical TAP) to anesthesiologist-administered transcutaneous ultrasound-guided TAP block (conventional TAP) for post-cesarean analgesia. We hypothesized that surgical TAP blocks would take less time to perform than conventional TAP blocks. We performed a randomized trial, recruiting 41 women undergoing cesarean delivery under neuraxial anesthesia, assigning them to either surgical TAP block (n=20) or conventional TAP block (n=21). Time taken to perform the block was the primary outcome, while postoperative pain scores and 24-hour opioid requirements were secondary outcomes. Student's t-test was used to compare block time and Kruskal-Wallis test opioid consumption and pain-scores. Time taken to perform the block (2.4 vs 12.1 min, P consumption (P=0.17) and postoperative pain scores at 4, 8, 24 and 48 h were not significantly different between the groups. Surgical TAP blocks are feasible and less time consuming than conventional TAP blocks, while providing comparable analgesia after cesarean delivery. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Trigonometrically Fitted Block Method for Solving Oscillatory Second-Order Initial Value Problems and Hamiltonian Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. F. Ngwane

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we present a block hybrid trigonometrically fitted Runge-Kutta-Nyström method (BHTRKNM, whose coefficients are functions of the frequency and the step-size for directly solving general second-order initial value problems (IVPs, including Hamiltonian systems such as the energy conserving equations and systems arising from the semidiscretization of partial differential equations (PDEs. Four discrete hybrid formulas used to formulate the BHTRKNM are provided by a continuous one-step hybrid trigonometrically fitted method with an off-grid point. We implement BHTRKNM in a block-by-block fashion; in this way, the method does not suffer from the disadvantages of requiring starting values and predictors which are inherent in predictor-corrector methods. The stability property of the BHTRKNM is discussed and the performance of the method is demonstrated on some numerical examples to show accuracy and efficiency advantages.

Trade Services System Adaptation for Sustainable Development

Science.gov (United States)

Khrichenkov, A.; Shaufler, V.; Bannikova, L.

2017-11-01

Under market conditions, the trade services system in post-Soviet Russia, being one of the most important city infrastructures, loses its systematic and hierarchic consistency hence provoking the degradation of communicating transport systems and urban planning framework. This article describes the results of the research carried out to identify objects and object parameters that influence functioning of a locally significant trade services system. Based on the revealed consumer behaviour patterns, we propose methods to determine the optimal parameters of objects inside a locally significant trade services system.

A Taxonomy of Self-configuring Service Discovery Systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sundramoorthy, V.; Hartel, Pieter H.; Scholten, Johan

2007-01-01

We analyze the fundamental concepts and issues in service discovery. This analysis places service discovery in the context of distributed systems by describing service discovery as a third generation naming system. We also describe the essential architectures and the functionalities in service

Introduction of Service Systems Implementation

Science.gov (United States)

Demirkan, Haluk; Spohrer, James C.; Krishna, Vikas

Services systems can range from an individual to a firm to an entire nation. They can also be nested and composed of other service systems. They are configurations of people, information, technology and organizations to co-create value between a service customer and a provider (Maglio et al. 2006; Spohrer et al. 2007). While these configurations can take many, potentially infinite, forms, they can be optimized for the subject service to eliminate unnecessary costs in the forms of redundancies, over allocation, etc. So what is an ideal configuration that a provider and a customer might strive to achieve? As much as it would be nice to have a formula for such configurations, experiences that are result of engagement, are very different for each value co-creation configurations. The variances and dynamism of customer provider engagements result in potentially infinite types and numbers of configurations in today's global economy.

Expert Systems in Reference Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Roysdon, Christine, Ed.; White, Howard D., Ed.

1989-01-01

Eleven articles introduce expert systems applications in library and information science, and present design and implementation issues of system development for reference services. Topics covered include knowledge based systems, prototype development, the use of artificial intelligence to remedy current system inadequacies, and an expert system to…

EnviroAtlas - Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN - Ecosystem Services by Block Group

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This EnviroAtlas dataset presents environmental benefits of the urban forest in 1,772 block groups in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Carbon attributes, temperature...

Corrosion evaluation of service water system materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stein, A.A.; Felder, C.M.; Martin, R.L.

1994-01-01

The availability and reliability of the service water system is critical for safe operation of a nuclear power plant. Degradation of the system piping and components has forced utilities to re-evaluate the corrosion behavior of current and alternative system materials, to support assessments of the remaining service life of the service water system, selection of replacement materials, implementation of corrosion protection methods and corrosion monitoring programs, and identification of maintenance and operational constraints consistent with the materials used. TU Electric and Stone and Webster developed a service water materials evaluation program for the Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station. Because of the length of exposure and the generic interest in this program by the nuclear power industry, EPRI joined TU to co-sponsor the test program. The program was designed to evaluate the corrosion behavior of current system materials and candidate replacement materials and to determine the operational and design changes which could improve the corrosion performance of the system. Although the test program was designed to be representative of service water system materials and environments targeted to conditions at Comanche Peak, these conditions are typical of and relevant to other fresh water cooled nuclear service water systems. Testing was performed in raw water and water treated with biocide under typical service water operating conditions including continuous flow, intermittent flow, and stagnant conditions. The test program evaluated the 300 Series and 6% molybdenum stainless steels, copper-nickel, titanium, carbon steel, and a formed-in-place nonmetallic pipe lining to determine susceptibility to general, crevice, and microbiologically influenced corrosion and pitting attack. This report presents the results of the test program after 4 years of exposure

Remote information service access system based on a client-server-service model

Science.gov (United States)

Konrad, A.M.

1996-08-06

A local host computing system, a remote host computing system as connected by a network, and service functionalities: a human interface service functionality, a starter service functionality, and a desired utility service functionality, and a Client-Server-Service (CSS) model is imposed on each service functionality. In one embodiment, this results in nine logical components and three physical components (a local host, a remote host, and an intervening network), where two of the logical components are integrated into one Remote Object Client component, and that Remote Object Client component and the other seven logical components are deployed among the local host and remote host in a manner which eases compatibility and upgrade problems, and provides an illusion to a user that a desired utility service supported on a remote host resides locally on the user`s local host, thereby providing ease of use and minimal software maintenance for users of that remote service. 16 figs.

Modelling of composite concrete block pavement systems applying a cohesive zone model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skar, Asmus; Poulsen, Peter Noe

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the fracture behaviour of the cement bound base material in composite concrete block pavement systems, using a cohesive zone model. The functionality of the proposed model is tested on experimental and numerical investigations of beam bending tests....... The pavement is modelled as a simple slab on grade structure and parameters influencing the response, such as analysis technique, geometry and material parameters are studied. Moreover, the analysis is extended to a real scale example, modelling the pavement as a three-layered structure. It is found...... block pavements. It is envisaged that the methodology implemented in this study can be extended and thereby contribute to the ongoing development of rational failure criteria that can replace the empirical formulas currently used in pavement engineering....

A Runtime System for Interactive Web Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brabrand, Claus; Møller, Anders; Sandholm, Anders

1999-01-01

Interactive web services are increasingly replacing traditional static web pages. Producing web services seems to require a tremendous amount of laborious low-level coding due to the primitive nature of CGI programming. We present ideas for an improved runtime system for interactive web services...... built on top of CGI running on virtually every combination of browser and HTTP/CGI server. The runtime system has been implemented and used extensively in , a tool for producing interactive web services....

Alternatives for blocking direct current in AC system neutrals at the Radisson/LG2 complex

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eitzmann, M.A.; Walling, R.A.; Sublich, M.; Kah, A.; Huynh, H.; Granger, M.; Dutil, A.

1992-01-01

Severe offset saturation results from the passage of direct current through power transformers. Such direct current can arise from geomagnetic disturbances, or resistive coupling of the substation ground to HVDC earth electrodes. This paper documents the development of alternative approaches for the design and application of blocking devices placed between transformer neutrals and the substation ground. System constraints on the impedance and overvoltage limitation of the neutral blocking device (NBD) are covered. Three alternative NBD schemes are developed and optimized. System performance of the NBD is discussed, as are the practical implementation considerations for this unconventional equipment application. Although the paper focuses on the NBD requirements of Hydro-Quebec's Radisson/LG2 complex, the fundamental information is applicable to any situation where dc must be clocked from a power transformer neutral in a system designed for effectively-grounded operation

A convergence analysis for a sweeping preconditioner for block tridiagonal systems of linear equations

KAUST Repository

Bagci, Hakan; Pasciak, Joseph E.; Sirenko, Kostyantyn

2014-01-01

We study sweeping preconditioners for symmetric and positive definite block tridiagonal systems of linear equations. The algorithm provides an approximate inverse that can be used directly or in a preconditioned iterative scheme. These algorithms are based on replacing the Schur complements appearing in a block Gaussian elimination direct solve by hierarchical matrix approximations with reduced off-diagonal ranks. This involves developing low rank hierarchical approximations to inverses. We first provide a convergence analysis for the algorithm for reduced rank hierarchical inverse approximation. These results are then used to prove convergence and preconditioning estimates for the resulting sweeping preconditioner.

A convergence analysis for a sweeping preconditioner for block tridiagonal systems of linear equations

KAUST Repository

Bagci, Hakan

2014-11-11

We study sweeping preconditioners for symmetric and positive definite block tridiagonal systems of linear equations. The algorithm provides an approximate inverse that can be used directly or in a preconditioned iterative scheme. These algorithms are based on replacing the Schur complements appearing in a block Gaussian elimination direct solve by hierarchical matrix approximations with reduced off-diagonal ranks. This involves developing low rank hierarchical approximations to inverses. We first provide a convergence analysis for the algorithm for reduced rank hierarchical inverse approximation. These results are then used to prove convergence and preconditioning estimates for the resulting sweeping preconditioner.

System Safety in an IT Service Organization

Science.gov (United States)

Parsons, Mike; Scutt, Simon

Within Logica UK, over 30 IT service projects are considered safetyrelated. These include operational IT services for airports, railway infrastructure asset management, nationwide radiation monitoring and hospital medical records services. A recent internal audit examined the processes and documents used to manage system safety on these services and made a series of recommendations for improvement. This paper looks at the changes and the challenges to introducing them, especially where the service is provided by multiple units supporting both safety and non-safety related services from multiple locations around the world. The recommendations include improvements to service agreements, improved process definitions, routine safety assessment of changes, enhanced call logging, improved staff competency and training, and increased safety awareness. Progress is reported as of today, together with a road map for implementation of the improvements to the service safety management system. A proposal for service assurance levels (SALs) is discussed as a way forward to cover the wide variety of services and associated safety risks.

A novel image block cryptosystem based on a spatiotemporal chaotic system and a chaotic neural network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Xing-Yuan; Bao Xue-Mei

2013-01-01

In this paper, we propose a novel block cryptographic scheme based on a spatiotemporal chaotic system and a chaotic neural network (CNN). The employed CNN comprises a 4-neuron layer called a chaotic neuron layer (CNL), where the spatiotemporal chaotic system participates in generating its weight matrix and other parameters. The spatiotemporal chaotic system used in our scheme is the typical coupled map lattice (CML), which can be easily implemented in parallel by hardware. A 160-bit-long binary sequence is used to generate the initial conditions of the CML. The decryption process is symmetric relative to the encryption process. Theoretical analysis and experimental results prove that the block cryptosystem is secure and practical, and suitable for image encryption. (general)

Systematic review of the systemic concentrations of local anaesthetic after transversus abdominis plane block and rectus sheath block

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rahiri, J.; Tuhoe, J.; Svirskis, D.; Lightfoot, N. J.; Lirk, P. B.; Hill, A. G.

2017-01-01

Background. Safe and efficacious modalities of perioperative analgesia are essential for enhanced recovery after surgery. Truncal nerve blocks are one potential adjunct for analgesia of the abdominal wall, and in recent years their popularity has increased. Transversus abdominis plane block (TAPB)

An Architecture for Automated Fire Detection Early Warning System Based on Geoprocessing Service Composition

Science.gov (United States)

Samadzadegan, F.; Saber, M.; Zahmatkesh, H.; Joze Ghazi Khanlou, H.

2013-09-01

Rapidly discovering, sharing, integrating and applying geospatial information are key issues in the domain of emergency response and disaster management. Due to the distributed nature of data and processing resources in disaster management, utilizing a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to take advantages of workflow of services provides an efficient, flexible and reliable implementations to encounter different hazardous situation. The implementation specification of the Web Processing Service (WPS) has guided geospatial data processing in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform to become a widely accepted solution for processing remotely sensed data on the web. This paper presents an architecture design based on OGC web services for automated workflow for acquisition, processing remotely sensed data, detecting fire and sending notifications to the authorities. A basic architecture and its building blocks for an automated fire detection early warning system are represented using web-based processing of remote sensing imageries utilizing MODIS data. A composition of WPS processes is proposed as a WPS service to extract fire events from MODIS data. Subsequently, the paper highlights the role of WPS as a middleware interface in the domain of geospatial web service technology that can be used to invoke a large variety of geoprocessing operations and chaining of other web services as an engine of composition. The applicability of proposed architecture by a real world fire event detection and notification use case is evaluated. A GeoPortal client with open-source software was developed to manage data, metadata, processes, and authorities. Investigating feasibility and benefits of proposed framework shows that this framework can be used for wide area of geospatial applications specially disaster management and environmental monitoring.

AN ARCHITECTURE FOR AUTOMATED FIRE DETECTION EARLY WARNING SYSTEM BASED ON GEOPROCESSING SERVICE COMPOSITION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Samadzadegan

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Rapidly discovering, sharing, integrating and applying geospatial information are key issues in the domain of emergency response and disaster management. Due to the distributed nature of data and processing resources in disaster management, utilizing a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA to take advantages of workflow of services provides an efficient, flexible and reliable implementations to encounter different hazardous situation. The implementation specification of the Web Processing Service (WPS has guided geospatial data processing in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA platform to become a widely accepted solution for processing remotely sensed data on the web. This paper presents an architecture design based on OGC web services for automated workflow for acquisition, processing remotely sensed data, detecting fire and sending notifications to the authorities. A basic architecture and its building blocks for an automated fire detection early warning system are represented using web-based processing of remote sensing imageries utilizing MODIS data. A composition of WPS processes is proposed as a WPS service to extract fire events from MODIS data. Subsequently, the paper highlights the role of WPS as a middleware interface in the domain of geospatial web service technology that can be used to invoke a large variety of geoprocessing operations and chaining of other web services as an engine of composition. The applicability of proposed architecture by a real world fire event detection and notification use case is evaluated. A GeoPortal client with open-source software was developed to manage data, metadata, processes, and authorities. Investigating feasibility and benefits of proposed framework shows that this framework can be used for wide area of geospatial applications specially disaster management and environmental monitoring.

Optimal Service Distribution in WSN Service System Subject to Data Security Constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Zhao; Xiong, Naixue; Huang, Yannong; Gu, Qiong

2014-01-01

Services composition technology provides a flexible approach to building Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Service Applications (WSA) in a service oriented tasking system for WSN. Maintaining the data security of WSA is one of the most important goals in sensor network research. In this paper, we consider a WSN service oriented tasking system in which the WSN Services Broker (WSB), as the resource management center, can map the service request from user into a set of atom-services (AS) and send them to some independent sensor nodes (SN) for parallel execution. The distribution of ASs among these SNs affects the data security as well as the reliability and performance of WSA because these SNs can be of different and independent specifications. By the optimal service partition into the ASs and their distribution among SNs, the WSB can provide the maximum possible service reliability and/or expected performance subject to data security constraints. This paper proposes an algorithm of optimal service partition and distribution based on the universal generating function (UGF) and the genetic algorithm (GA) approach. The experimental analysis is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the suggested algorithm. PMID:25093346

Assessment of Effects of a Delay Block and a Nonlinear Block in Systems with Chaotic Behavior Using Lyapunov Exponents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pablo César Rodríguez Gómez

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Context: Because feedback systems are very common and widely used, studies of the structural characteristics under which chaotic behavior is generated have been developed. These can be separated into a nonlinear system and a linear system at least of the third order. Methods such as the descriptive function have been used for analysis. Method: A feedback system is proposed comprising a linear system, a nonlinear system and a delay block, in order to assess his behavior using Lyapunov exponents. It is evaluated with three different linear systems, different delay values and different values for parameters of nonlinear characteristic, aiming to reach chaotic behavior. Results: One hundred experiments were carried out for each of the three linear systems, by changing the value of some parameters, assessing their influence on the dynamics of the system. Contour plots that relate these parameters to the Largest Lyapunov exponent were obtained and analyzed. Conclusions: In spite non-linearity is a condition for the existence of chaos, this does not imply that any nonlinear characteristic generates a chaotic system, it is reflected by the contour plots showing the transitions between chaotic and no chaotic behavior of the feedback system. Language: English

Thermal analysis of W VII-AS limiter system and presentation of a graphite-block concept

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mukherjee, S.; Grigull, P.

1989-01-01

A 2D-finite element thermal analysis of the initial W VII-AS limiter system has been performed and is discussed. Furhter to this analysis a graphite block concept is presented. This concept has been numerically analyzed for applications as a limiter in plasma and nuclear fusion experimental devices. The results are described in this paper. This block concept seems to be also applicable to first wall and divertor designs; the graphite elements could be replaced by ceramic ones. (author). 10 refs.; 13 figs

Pore pressure control on faulting behavior in a block-gouge system

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Z.; Juanes, R.

2016-12-01

Pore fluid pressure in a fault zone can be altered by natural processes (e.g., mineral dehydration and thermal pressurization) and industrial operations involving subsurface fluid injection/extraction for the development of energy and water resources. However, the effect of pore pressure change on the stability and slip motion of a preexisting geologic fault remain poorly understood; yet they are critical for the assessment of seismic risk. In this work, we develop a micromechanical model to investigate the effect of pore pressure on faulting behavior. The model couples pore network fluid flow and mechanics of the solid grains. We conceptualize the fault zone as a gouge layer sandwiched between two blocks; the block material is represented by a group of contact-bonded grains and the gouge is composed of unbonded grains. A pore network is extracted from the particulate pack of the block-gouge system with pore body volumes and pore throat conductivities calculated rigorously based on the geometry of the local pore space. Pore fluid exerts pressure force onto the grains, the motion of which is solved using the discrete element method (DEM). The model updates the pore network regularly in response to deformation of the solid matrix. We study the fault stability in the presence of a pressure inhomogeneity (gradient) across the gouge layer, and compare it with the case of homogeneous pore pressure. We consider both normal and thrust faulting scenarios with a focus on the onset of shear failure along the block-gouge interfaces. Numerical simulations show that the slip behavior is characterized by intermittent dynamics, which is evident in the number of slipping contacts at the block-gouge interfaces and the total kinetic energy of the gouge particles. Numerical results also show that, for the case of pressure inhomogeneity, the onset of slip occurs earlier for the side with higher pressure, and that this onset appears to be controlled by the maximum pressure of both sides

Blocking of CERN Accounts after 28 February 28 2011

CERN Multimedia

IT Department

2011-01-01

Since last year, all persons owning a CERN computer account must follow the obligatory CERN Computer Security Course. This course takes usually less than 15 minutes and is available online from inside and outside CERN at http://cern.ch/computersecuritycourse. Failure to pass this course by February 28th 2011 will lead to blocking the corresponding account. If you haven't taken it yet, do it NOW! Accounts of users who have not followed this course yet will be blocked during the first weeks of March. As a consequence, these users will not able anymore to log into any CERN computing resource with their primary account. Affected users should contact the CERN Service Desk at 77777 (+41 22 76 77777 from outside CERN) or http://cern.ch/service-desk in order to get their account unblocked. They will be given a grace-period of five days to follow the course or the account will be blocked again. Please see also the announcement in a previous issue of the Bulletin. Thank you for your collaboration, CERN Computer Sec...

Assessing Ecosystem Services and Multifunctionality for Vineyard Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Klara J. Winkler

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Vineyards shape important economic, cultural, and ecological systems in many temperate biomes. Like other agricultural systems, they can be multifunctional landscapes that not only produce grapes, but also for example serve as wildlife habitat, sequester carbon, and are places of rich traditions. However, research and management practices often focus mostly on individual, specific ecosystem services, without considering multifunctionality. Therefore, we set out to meet four research objectives: (1 evaluate how frequently the ecosystem services approach has been applied in vineyard systems; (2 identify which individual ecosystem services have been most frequently studied in vineyard systems, (3 summarize knowledge on the key ecosystem services identified in (2, and (4 illustrate approaches to multifunctionality in vineyards to inform more holistic land management. For research objective (1, we identified 45 publications that used the term “ecosystem services” in relation to vineyards, but found that only seven fully apply the ecosystem service concept to their research. For research objective (2, we operationalized the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES for 27 ecosystem services in vineyards, in order to consider provisioning, regulating, and cultural services through an analysis of more than 4,000 scientific papers that mentioned individual services. We found the six most frequently studied ecosystem services included (1 cultivated crops, (2 filtration, sequestration, storage and accumulation by the vineyards, (3 pest control and (4 disease control, (5 heritage, cultural and (6 scientific services. For research objective (3, we found that research on these six single ecosystem services is highly developed, but relationships between single ecosystem services are less studied. Therefore, we suggest that greater adoption of the ecosystem services approach could help scientists and practitioners to acknowledge the

Block copolymer battery separator

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, David; Balsara, Nitash Pervez

2016-04-26

The invention herein described is the use of a block copolymer/homopolymer blend for creating nanoporous materials for transport applications. Specifically, this is demonstrated by using the block copolymer poly(styrene-block-ethylene-block-styrene) (SES) and blending it with homopolymer polystyrene (PS). After blending the polymers, a film is cast, and the film is submerged in tetrahydrofuran, which removes the PS. This creates a nanoporous polymer film, whereby the holes are lined with PS. Control of morphology of the system is achieved by manipulating the amount of PS added and the relative size of the PS added. The porous nature of these films was demonstrated by measuring the ionic conductivity in a traditional battery electrolyte, 1M LiPF.sub.6 in EC/DEC (1:1 v/v) using AC impedance spectroscopy and comparing these results to commercially available battery separators.

Characterizing permanent magnet blocks with Helmholtz coils

Science.gov (United States)

Carnegie, D. W.; Timpf, J.

1992-08-01

Most of the insertion devices to be installed at the Advanced Photon Source will utilize permanent magnets in their magnetic structures. The quality of the spectral output is sensitive to the errors in the field of the device which are related to variations in the magnetic properties of the individual blocks. The Advanced Photon Source will have a measurement facility to map the field in the completed insertion devices and equipment to test and modify the magnetic strength of the individual magnet blocks. One component of the facility, the Helmholtz coil permanent magnet block measurement system, has been assembled and tested. This system measures the total magnetic moment vector of a block with a precision better than 0.01% and a directional resolution of about 0.05°. The design and performance of the system will be presented.

Feasibility and usefulness of reconstructing obsolete power blocks of VVER-440 reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kirichenko, A.M.; Krushenik, S.D.; Sigal, M.V.; Kustov, V.P.

1993-01-01

At the present time, in Russia and in the East European countries there are atomic power stations with first-generation VVER-440 reactors built according to specification which no longer satisfy the more rigorous modern safety standards. Among these power stations are, in particular, the Novovoronezh and the Armenian Atomic Power Station and two blocks of the Kola Atomic Power Station. The search for technical solutions for modernizing these power blocks is complicated because two conditions which are hard to reconcile must be fulfilled: an acceptable safety level must be obtained and the rebuilding must be economically justifiable (particularly since the time of operation of a power block until its standard service life is over is short). Research work undertaken in the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Atomic Power Stations has shown that one way of overcoming these difficulties may involve changing the operating conditions of the reactor assembly to a less demanding mode of operation. This solution implies an economically justified minimum of structural improvements, provides the required safety level, and prolongs the service life of the power block. The reduction of the thermal power, and consequently, the necessary transfer of a power block to another option

Geoinformation systems and web services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan Růžička

2005-06-01

Full Text Available State-of-art systems provide comprehensive solutions almost to all users from the data pre-processing through data processing to their final presentation. Consequently, these solutions are very expensive and unavailable for some potential end users. Thus, several questions come up. Do we really need all these functions and, if not why do we have to pay for them? Is it possible to develop such a system with all these functions but without the need of end users to pay extra money for that? In the following text the authors will try to answer the above questions. Web services are a hit of the day. On many experts opinions web services represent a standard for a new information system generation. A prove of this statement could be the fact that every new software product support this form of the internet use. Also in the geoinformatics, this facility is successfully used for a long time (e.g. WMS, WFS. But as all, even web services are further developed and also native protocols, based on the XML format, are subsequently replaced by general protocols (e.g. SOAP.These protocols also use XML, but they enable the development of distributed systems with paralleled features using the Internet as a communication middleware. Thus, it is possible to develop wide information systems with a high level of modularity and integration with existing systems. The paper describes the architecture for the development of open and modular systems.

Analysis of Block OMP using Block RIP

OpenAIRE

Wang, Jun; Li, Gang; Zhang, Hao; Wang, Xiqin

2011-01-01

Orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) is a canonical greedy algorithm for sparse signal reconstruction. When the signal of interest is block sparse, i.e., it has nonzero coefficients occurring in clusters, the block version of OMP algorithm (i.e., Block OMP) outperforms the conventional OMP. In this paper, we demonstrate that a new notion of block restricted isometry property (Block RIP), which is less stringent than standard restricted isometry property (RIP), can be used for a very straightforw...

Development of augmented reality system for servicing electromechanical equipment

Science.gov (United States)

Zhukovskiy, Y.; Koteleva, N.

2018-05-01

Electromechanical equipment is widely used. It is used in industrial enterprises, in the spheres of public services, in everyday life, etc. Maintenance servicing of electromechanical equipment is an important part of its life cycle. High-quality and timely service can extend the life of the electromechanical equipment. The creation of special systems that simplify the process of servicing electromechanical equipment is an urgent task. Such systems can shorten the time for maintenance of electrical equipment, and, therefore, reduce the cost of maintenance in general. This article presents an analysis of information on the operation of service services for maintenance and repair of electromechanical equipment, identifies the list of services, and estimates the time required to perform basic service operations. The structure of the augmented reality system is presented, the ways of interaction of the augmented reality system with the automated control systems working at the enterprise are presented.

Linux block IO: introducing multi-queue SSD access on multi-core systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjørling, Matias; Axboe, Jens; Nellans, David

2013-01-01

The IO performance of storage devices has accelerated from hundreds of IOPS five years ago, to hundreds of thousands of IOPS today, and tens of millions of IOPS projected in five years. This sharp evolution is primarily due to the introduc- tion of NAND-flash devices and their data parallel desig...... generation block layer that is capable of handling tens of millions of IOPS on a multi-core system equipped with a single storage device. Our experiments show that our design scales graciously with the number of cores, even on NUMA systems with multiple sockets....

47 CFR 52.20 - Thousands-block number pooling.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... aligned with any particular telecommunication industry segment, and shall comply with the same neutrality... 47 Telecommunication 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Thousands-block number pooling. 52.20 Section 52.20 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES...

Developing Distributed System With Service Resource Oriented Architecture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hermawan Hermawan

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Service Oriented Architecture is a design paradigm in software engineering with which a distributed system is built for an enterprise. This paradigm aims at providing the system as a service through a protocol in web service technology, namely Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP. However, SOA is service level agreements of webservice. For this reason, this reasearch aims at combining SOA with Resource Oriented Architecture in order to expand scalability of services. This combination creates Sevice Resource Oriented Architecture (SROA with which a distributed system is developed that integrates services within project management software. Following this design, the software is developed according to a framework of Agile Model Driven Development which can reduce complexities of the whole process of software development.

31 CFR 595.301 - Blocked account; blocked property.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... (Continued) OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY TERRORISM SANCTIONS REGULATIONS General Definitions § 595.301 Blocked account; blocked property. The terms blocked account and blocked...

Hardware realization of chaos based block cipher for image encryption

KAUST Repository

Barakat, Mohamed L.; Radwan, Ahmed G.; Salama, Khaled N.

2011-01-01

Unlike stream ciphers, block ciphers are very essential for parallel processing applications. In this paper, the first hardware realization of chaotic-based block cipher is proposed for image encryption applications. The proposed system is tested for known cryptanalysis attacks and for different block sizes. When implemented on Virtex-IV, system performance showed high throughput and utilized small area. Passing successfully in all tests, our system proved to be secure with all block sizes. © 2011 IEEE.

Hardware realization of chaos based block cipher for image encryption

KAUST Repository

Barakat, Mohamed L.

2011-12-01

Unlike stream ciphers, block ciphers are very essential for parallel processing applications. In this paper, the first hardware realization of chaotic-based block cipher is proposed for image encryption applications. The proposed system is tested for known cryptanalysis attacks and for different block sizes. When implemented on Virtex-IV, system performance showed high throughput and utilized small area. Passing successfully in all tests, our system proved to be secure with all block sizes. © 2011 IEEE.

A systemic approach to understanding mental health and services.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Mark

2017-10-01

In the UK mental health and associated NHS services face considerable challenges. This paper aims to form an understanding both of the complexity of context in which services operate and the means by which services have sought to meet these challenges. Systemic principles as have been applied to public service organisations with reference to interpersonal relations, the wider social culture and its manifestation in service provision. The analysis suggests that the wider culture has shaped service demand and the approaches adopted by services resulting in a number of unintended consequences, reinforcing loops, increased workload demands and the limited value of services. The systemic modelling of this situation provides a necessary overview prior to future policy development. The paper concludes that mental health and attendant services requires a systemic understanding and a whole system approach to reform. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Nerve Blocks

Science.gov (United States)

... News Physician Resources Professions Site Index A-Z Nerve Blocks A nerve block is an injection to ... the limitations of Nerve Block? What is a Nerve Block? A nerve block is an anesthetic and/ ...

Multi-echelon systems : a service measure perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Diks, E.B.; Kok, de A.G.; Lagodimos, A.G.

1996-01-01

This paper reviews the most important results on divergent multi-echelon systems. In particular, we concentrate on the interactions between the elements that constitute such a multi-echelon system, in order to determine several service measures (e.g. external customer service level and inventory

Evolution of the NFS Filer Service

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva; ROUSSEAU, Herve; MASCETTI, Luca

2015-01-01

The presentation will give an overview of the operations activities in the IT DSS group on the NFS services and its consolidation with the goal of avoiding proprietary solutions. CERN-IT manages a series of NetApp appliances for NFS applications, the presentation will focus on the Filer history, on a new way to provide NFS-based services using an advanced filesystem like ZFS combined with Ceph (IT-DSS block storage solution for OpenStack) and on the decommissioning strategy of the previous proprietary Filer. The presentation will highlight strengths and weaknesses for each systems and a cost comparison of the different solutions.

Seismic Evidence for Conjugate Slip and Block Rotation Within the San Andreas Fault System, Southern California

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholson, Craig; Seeber, Leonardo; Williams, Patrick; Sykes, Lynn R.

1986-08-01

The pattern of seismicity in southern California indicates that much of the activity is presently occurring on secondary structures, several of which are oriented nearly orthogonal to the strikes of the major through-going faults. Slip along these secondary transverse features is predominantly left-lateral and is consistent with the reactivation of conjugate faults by the current regional stress field. Near the intersection of the San Jacinto and San Andreas faults, however, these active left-lateral faults appear to define a set of small crustal blocks, which in conjunction with both normal and reverse faulting earthquakes, suggests contemporary clockwise rotation as a result of regional right-lateral shear. Other left-lateral faults representing additional rotating block systems are identified in adjacent areas from geologic and seismologic data. Many of these structures predate the modern San Andreas system and may control the pattern of strain accumulation in southern California. Geodetic and paleomagnetic evidence confirm that block rotation by strike-slip faulting is nearly ubiquitous, particularly in areas where shear is distributed, and that it accommodates both short-term elastic and long-term nonelastic strain. A rotating block model accounts for a number of structural styles characteristic of strike-slip deformation in California, including: variable slip rates and alternating transtensional and transpressional features observed along strike of major wrench faults; domains of evenly-spaced antithetic faults that terminate against major fault boundaries; continued development of bends in faults with large lateral displacements; anomalous focal mechanisms; and differential uplift in areas otherwise expected to experience extension and subsidence. Since block rotation requires a detachment surface at depth to permit rotational movement, low-angle structures like detachments, of either local or regional extent, may be involved in the contemporary strike

Assessment of Single European Sky Implementation in the Functional Airspace Block Central Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomislav Mihetec

2017-12-01

implementation is performed through sub-regional grouping of Air Navigation Service Providers in a form of Functional Airspace Blocks. This paper analyses the level of implementation of ATM-related projects in the Functional Airspace Block Central Europe and their relation to other Functional Airspace Blocks defined in Europe. From this paper it is obvious that even though the planning of Single European Sky projects is based on the collaborative implementation of Functional Airspace Block level, the real implementation is fragmented and based on national levels.

Automated Information System for School Food Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Hazarika, Panna; Galligan, Stephen

1982-01-01

Controlling warehousing operations and food inventory, administering school cafeteria activity, and measuring the profitability of food service operations are identified as food service administrative problems. A comprehensive school food services information system developed to address these problems is described. (Author/MLF)

Block preconditioners for linear systems arising from multiscale collocation with compactly supported RBFs

KAUST Repository

Farrell, Patricio

2015-04-30

© 2015John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Symmetric collocation methods with RBFs allow approximation of the solution of a partial differential equation, even if the right-hand side is only known at scattered data points, without needing to generate a grid. However, the benefit of a guaranteed symmetric positive definite block system comes at a high computational cost. This cost can be alleviated somewhat by considering compactly supported RBFs and a multiscale technique. But the condition number and sparsity will still deteriorate with the number of data points. Therefore, we study certain block diagonal and triangular preconditioners. We investigate ideal preconditioners and determine the spectra of the preconditioned matrices before proposing more practical preconditioners based on a restricted additive Schwarz method with coarse grid correction. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the preconditioners.

Handbook of Mobile Systems Applications and Services

CERN Document Server

Kumar, Anup

2012-01-01

From fundamental concepts and theories to implementation protocols and cutting-edge applications, the Handbook of Mobile Systems Applications and Services supplies a complete examination of the evolution of mobile services technologies. It examines service-oriented architecture (SOA) and explains why SOA and Service Oriented Computing (SOC) will play key roles in the development of future mobile services. Investigating current service discovery frameworks, the book covers the basics of mobile services and applications developed in various contexts. The first section provides readers with the r

APPLICATION FRAMEWORK IN ENGINEERING SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE SYSTEM SERVICE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ade Hodijah

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The Service Engineering (SE is understood as a framework to create innovative services in application development of information technology approach to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA. Implementing SOA is required methodology to identify services that can be used again in the application and organization of a company. in this research, software development model used is object-oriented methodologies, SOA itself is a collection consisting of tools, technologies, frameworks, and best practices that facilitate the implementation of a service quickly. in a study this uses the tools of Business Process Management System (BPMS to support the implementation of service-oriented software. the purpose of this study is to produce a model of activities and artifacts of the application software development models of the SE with a case study Rate Loans. Validation to the design of the model is done through testing of the software produced. The results showed that the application of the SE in the development of service-oriented software can use the object-oriented methodology by providing additional value-added analysis and redesign of business processes to be implemented on a BPMS. BPMS usage of the application of the SE on the SOA has the advantage of visualization in the management of business processes.

Formal Modeling of Service Session Management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Le, V.M.; van Beijnum, Bernhard J.F.; de Goede, Leo; Almeroth, Kevin C.; Hasan, Masum

2002-01-01

This paper proposes a concept to apply modeling tools to Multi-Provider Telematics Service Management. The service architecture is based on the framework called “Open Service Components” which serves as building blocks to compose end-to-end telematics services in terms of service components offered

A novel power swing blocking scheme using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zadeh, Hassan Khorashadi; Li, Zuyi [Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 3301 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL 60616 (United States)

2008-07-15

A power swing may be caused by any sudden change in the configuration or the loading of an electrical network. During a power swing, the impedance locus moves along an impedance circle with possible encroachment into the distance relay zone, which may cause an unnecessary tripping. In order to prevent the distance relay from tripping under such condition, a novel power swing blocking (PSB) scheme is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme uses an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) for preventing distance relay from tripping during power swings. The input signals to ANFIS, include the change of positive sequence impedance, positive and negative sequence currents, and power swing center voltage. Extensive tests show that the proposed PSB has two distinct features that are advantageous over existing schemes. The first is that the proposed scheme is able to detect various kinds of power swings thus block distance relays during power swings, even if the power swings are fast or the power swings occur during single pole open conditions. The second distinct feature is that the proposed scheme is able to clear the blocking if faults occur within the relay trip zone during power swings, even if the faults are high resistance faults, or the faults occur at the power swing center, or the faults occur when the power angle is close to 180 . (author)

Blocking-resistant communication through domain fronting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fifield David

2015-06-01

Full Text Available We describe “domain fronting,” a versatile censorship circumvention technique that hides the remote endpoint of a communication. Domain fronting works at the application layer, using HTTPS, to communicate with a forbidden host while appearing to communicate with some other host, permitted by the censor. The key idea is the use of different domain names at different layers of communication. One domain appears on the “outside” of an HTTPS request—in the DNS request and TLS Server Name Indication—while another domain appears on the “inside”—in the HTTP Host header, invisible to the censor under HTTPS encryption. A censor, unable to distinguish fronted and nonfronted traffic to a domain, must choose between allowing circumvention traffic and blocking the domain entirely, which results in expensive collateral damage. Domain fronting is easy to deploy and use and does not require special cooperation by network intermediaries. We identify a number of hard-to-block web services, such as content delivery networks, that support domain-fronted connections and are useful for censorship circumvention. Domain fronting, in various forms, is now a circumvention workhorse. We describe several months of deployment experience in the Tor, Lantern, and Psiphon circumvention systems, whose domain-fronting transports now connect thousands of users daily and transfer many terabytes per month.

Computer Aided Product Service Systems Design : Service CAD and Its integration with Life Cycle Simulation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Komoto, H.

2009-01-01

Integration of product design into service design, or vice versa, is considered to bring more efficient and effective value addition. Besides EcoDesign tools and methods, a methodology to design such an integration of products and services from a systemic perspective, or product-service systems

Catheter ablation as a treatment of atrioventricular block.

Science.gov (United States)

Tuohy, Stephen; Saliba, Walid; Pai, Manjunath; Tchou, Patrick

2018-01-01

Symptomatic second-degree atrioventricular (AV) block is typically treated by implantation of a pacemaker. An otherwise healthy AV conduction system can nevertheless develop AV block due to interference from junctional extrasystoles. When present with a high burden, these can produce debilitating symptoms from AV block despite an underlying normal AV node and His-Purkinje system properties. The purpose of this study was to describe a catheter ablation approach for alleviating symptomatic AV block due to a ventricular nodal pathway interfering with AV conduction. Common clinical monitoring techniques such as Holter and event recorders were used. Standard electrophysiological study techniques using multipolar recording and ablation catheters were utilized during procedures. A 55-year-old woman presented with highly symptomatic, high-burden second-degree AV block due to concealed and manifest junctional premature beats. Electrophysiological characteristics indicated interference of AV conduction due to a concealed ventricular nodal pathway as the cause of the AV block. The patient's AV nodal and His-Purkinje system conduction characteristics were otherwise normal. Radiofrequency catheter ablation of the pathway was successful in restoring normal AV conduction and eliminating her clinical symptoms. Pathways inserting into the AV junction can interfere with AV conduction. When present at a high burden, this type of AV block can be highly symptomatic. Catheter ablation techniques can be used to alleviate this type of AV block and restore normal AV conduction. Copyright © 2017 Heart Rhythm Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Advances in battery manufacturing, service, and management systems

CERN Document Server

Zhou, Shiyu; Han, Yehui

2016-01-01

This book brings together experts in the field to highlight the cutting edge research advances in BM2S2 and to promote an innovative integrated research framework responding to the challenges. There are three major parts included in this book: manufacturing, service, and management. The first part focuses on battery manufacturing systems, including modeling, analysis, design and control, as well as economic and risk analyses. The second part focuses on information technology’s impact on service systems, such as data-driven reliability modeling, failure prognosis, and service decision making methodologies for battery services. The third part addresses battery management systems (BMS) for control and optimization of battery cells, opera ions, and hybrid storage systems to ensure overall performance and safety, as well as EV management.

Drift chambers on the basis of mylar tubing blocks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Budagov, Yu.A.; Golovanov, L.B.; Kuritsin, A.A.; Pukhov, O.E.; Khazins, D.M.; Chirikov-Zorin, I.E.; Joint Inst. for Nuclear Research, Dubna; Zhukov, V.Yu.

1992-01-01

We tested the models of the drift chambers, which are constructed of mylar tubing blocks. The purpose of the tubing block forming technology is to create long chambers (up to 3-4 meters). There are count and drift characteristics of the chambers for different gas pressures and different diameters of sense wires. The service time of the chambers is defined. We registered a photoeffect in the visible spectrum area, which is displayed on the surface of the mylar film cathode, covered by aluminium. 8 refs.; 5 figs

Web service based system for generating input data sets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kralev, Velin; Kraleva, Radoslava

2011-01-01

This article deals with a three-layer architectural model of a distributed information system based on Web services, which will be used for automatic generation of sets of input data. The information system will be constructed of a client layer, a service layer and of a data layer. The web services as a tool of developing distributed software systems will be presented briefly. A web service and the implementation of its web methods will be described. A way to use the developed web methods in real application will be proposed. Keywords: web services

A Service Systems Perspective of E-Government Development

Science.gov (United States)

Phang, Chee Wei; Kankanhalli, Atreyi

There have been increasing efforts by governments worldwide to innovate public service delivery, one of the means being through e-government. However, the mixed success of e-government initiatives highlights the need to better understand citizens' requirements and engage them in the development of e-government service offerings. In response to this need, we propose a service systems perspective to analyze a participatory e-government service system based on the key resources of people, organizations, shared information, and technologies. By doing so, this study bridges the gap in existing research that has separately examined the different resources without considering their inter-relationships in a systematic manner. For practitioners, the resulting framework provides a tool to understand how the key resources as well as stakeholders of the e-government service system inter-relate, which allows more comprehensive strategies to be formulated for improving e-government service offerings.

Web services foundations

CERN Document Server

Bouguettaya, Athman; Daniel, Florian

2013-01-01

Web services and Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) have become thriving areas of academic research, joint university/industry research projects, and novel IT products on the market. SOC is the computing paradigm that uses Web services as building blocks for the engineering of composite, distributed applications out of the reusable application logic encapsulated by Web services. Web services could be considered the best-known and most standardized technology in use today for distributed computing over the Internet.Web Services Foundations is the first installment of a two-book collection coverin

Development of Wearable Systems for Ubiquitous Healthcare Service Provisioning

OpenAIRE

Ogunduyile, O.O.; Olugbara, O.O.; Lall, M.

2013-01-01

This paper reports on the development of a wearable system using wireless biomedical sensors for ubiquitous healthcare service provisioning. The prototype system is developed to address current healthcare challenges such as increasing cost of services, inability to access diverse services, low quality services and increasing population of elderly as experienced globally. The biomedical sensors proactively collect physiological data of remote patients to recommend diagnostic services. The prot...

Service water system aging assessment - Phase I

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jarrell, D.B.; Zimmerman, P.W.; Gore, M.L.

1988-01-01

The Service Water System (SWS) represents the final heat transfer loop between decay heat generated in the nuclear core and the safe dispersal of that heat energy in the environment. It is the objective of this investigation to demonstrate that aging phenomena can be identified and quantified such that aging degradation of system components can be detected and mitigated prior to the reduction of system availability to below an acceptable threshold. The approach used during the Phase I task was to (1) perform a literature search of government and private sector reports which relate to service water, aging related degradation, and potential methodologies for analysis; (2) assemble a data base which contains all the commercial power plants in the US, their Service Water System configuration, characteristics, and water source; (3) obtain and examine the available service water data from large generic data bases, i.e. NPRDS, LER, NPE, inspection reports, and other relevant plant reference data; (4) perform a fault tree analysis of a typical plant service water systems to examine failure propagation and understand specific input requirements of probabilistic risk analyses; (5) develop an in-depth questionnaire protocol for examining the information resource at a power plant which is not available through data base query and visit a central station power plant and solicit the required information; (6) analyze the information obtained from the in-depth plant interrogation and draw contrasts and conclusions with the data base information; (7) utilize the plant information to perform an interim assessment of service water system degradation mechanisms and focus future investigations. This paper addresses the elements of this task plan numbered 1, 3, 6, and 7. The remaining items are detailed in the phase-I report

UAV PHOTOGRAMMETRY: BLOCK TRIANGULATION COMPARISONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Gini

2013-08-01

Full Text Available UAVs systems represent a flexible technology able to collect a big amount of high resolution information, both for metric and interpretation uses. In the frame of experimental tests carried out at Dept. ICA of Politecnico di Milano to validate vector-sensor systems and to assess metric accuracies of images acquired by UAVs, a block of photos taken by a fixed wing system is triangulated with several software. The test field is a rural area included in an Italian Park ("Parco Adda Nord", useful to study flight and imagery performances on buildings, roads, cultivated and uncultivated vegetation. The UAV SenseFly, equipped with a camera Canon Ixus 220HS, flew autonomously over the area at a height of 130 m yielding a block of 49 images divided in 5 strips. Sixteen pre-signalized Ground Control Points, surveyed in the area through GPS (NRTK survey, allowed the referencing of the block and accuracy analyses. Approximate values for exterior orientation parameters (positions and attitudes were recorded by the flight control system. The block was processed with several software: Erdas-LPS, EyeDEA (Univ. of Parma, Agisoft Photoscan, Pix4UAV, in assisted or automatic way. Results comparisons are given in terms of differences among digital surface models, differences in orientation parameters and accuracies, when available. Moreover, image and ground point coordinates obtained by the various software were independently used as initial values in a comparative adjustment made by scientific in-house software, which can apply constraints to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods of point extraction and accuracies on ground check points.

Understanding Service-Oriented Systems Using Dynamic Analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Espinha, T.; Zaidman, A.; Gross, H.G.

2011-01-01

When trying to understand a system that is based on the principles of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), it is typically not enough to understand the individual services in the architecture, but also the interactions between the services. In this paper, we present a technique based on dynamic

Light extraction block with curved surface

Science.gov (United States)

Levermore, Peter; Krall, Emory; Silvernail, Jeffrey; Rajan, Kamala; Brown, Julia J.

2016-03-22

Light extraction blocks, and OLED lighting panels using light extraction blocks, are described, in which the light extraction blocks include various curved shapes that provide improved light extraction properties compared to parallel emissive surface, and a thinner form factor and better light extraction than a hemisphere. Lighting systems described herein may include a light source with an OLED panel. A light extraction block with a three-dimensional light emitting surface may be optically coupled to the light source. The three-dimensional light emitting surface of the block may includes a substantially curved surface, with further characteristics related to the curvature of the surface at given points. A first radius of curvature corresponding to a maximum principal curvature k.sub.1 at a point p on the substantially curved surface may be greater than a maximum height of the light extraction block. A maximum height of the light extraction block may be less than 50% of a maximum width of the light extraction block. Surfaces with cross sections made up of line segments and inflection points may also be fit to approximated curves for calculating the radius of curvature.

Cutaneous Sensory Block Area, Muscle-Relaxing Effect, and Block Duration of the Transversus Abdominis Plane Block

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Støving, Kion; Rothe, Christian; Rosenstock, Charlotte V

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block is a widely used nerve block. However, basic block characteristics are poorly described. The purpose of this study was to assess the cutaneous sensory block area, muscle-relaxing effect, and block duration. METHODS: Sixteen...... healthy volunteers were randomized to receive an ultrasound-guided unilateral TAP block with 20 mL 7.5 mg/mL ropivacaine and placebo on the contralateral side. Measurements were performed at baseline and 90 minutes after performing the block. Cutaneous sensory block area was mapped and separated...... into a medial and lateral part by a vertical line through the anterior superior iliac spine. We measured muscle thickness of the 3 lateral abdominal muscle layers with ultrasound in the relaxed state and during maximal voluntary muscle contraction. The volunteers reported the duration of the sensory block...

On a computer implementation of the block Gauss–Seidel method for normal systems of equations

OpenAIRE

Alexander I. Zhdanov; Ekaterina Yu. Bogdanova

2016-01-01

This article focuses on the modification of the block option Gauss-Seidel method for normal systems of equations, which is a sufficiently effective method of solving generally overdetermined, systems of linear algebraic equations of high dimensionality. The main disadvantage of methods based on normal equations systems is the fact that the condition number of the normal system is equal to the square of the condition number of the original problem. This fact has a negative impact on the rate o...

Systemic morphine blocks the seizures induced by intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injections of opiates and opioid peptides.

Science.gov (United States)

Urca, G; Frenk, H

1982-08-19

Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injections of the endorphins and of morphine in rats produce highly characteristic, naloxone sensitive, electrographic seizures. In contrast, systemic injections of morphine have been shown to exert a marked anticonvulsant effect. The present study demonstrates that systemic morphine pretreatment can prevent the occurrence of electrographic seizures injected by i.c.v. morphine, Leu-enkephalin and beta-endorphin and that the anti-epileptic effect of morphine can be reversed by naloxone. Male albino rats, previously prepared for chronic i.c.v. injections and EEG recordings, were pretreated with 0--100 mg/kg of intraperitoneal (i.p.) morphine. Thirty five minutes later morphine (520 nmol), Leu-enkephalin (80 nmol) or beta-endorphin (5 nmol) were injected i.c.v. Pretreatment with i.p. morphine blocked the occurrence of seizures induced by morphine and both endogenous opioids. Lower doses of systemic morphine (50 mg/kg) were necessary to block i.c.v. morphine seizures than the dose (100 mg/kg) necessary to block seizures induced by i.c.v. Leu-enkephalin and beta-endorphin. Naloxone (1 mg/kg) administered 25 min following 50 mg/kg of i.p. morphine and preceding the injections of i.c.v. morphine reversed the antiepileptic effect of systemic morphine. These results demonstrate the possible existence of two opiate sensitive systems, one with excitatory-epileptogenic effects and the other possessing inhibitory-antiepileptic properties. The possible relationship between these findings and the known heterogeneity of opiate receptors and opiate actions is discussed.

The Reconfiguration of Service Production Systems in Response to Offshoring

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandl, Kristin; Mol, Michael J.; Petersen, Bent

2017-01-01

Purpose: A service production system has a structure composed of task execution, agents performing tasks and a resulting service output. The purpose of this paper is to understand how such a service production system changes as a consequence of offshoring.Design/methodology/approach: Drawing...... of a service production system in response to change ignited by offshoring. The authors find recurring effects between structures that enable and constrain agents and agents who shape the structure of the production system. Research limitations/implications: The paper offers a novel contribution to the service...... operations management literature by applying practice theory. Moreover, the authors propose a detailed, activity-driven view of service production systems and service offshoring. The authors contribute to practice theory by extending its domain to operations management.Practical implications...

31 CFR 594.301 - Blocked account; blocked property.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... (Continued) OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY GLOBAL TERRORISM SANCTIONS REGULATIONS General Definitions § 594.301 Blocked account; blocked property. The terms blocked account and...

Complications with the MICRA TPS Pacemaker System: Persistent Complete Heart Block and Late Capture Failure.

Science.gov (United States)

Holm, Niels; Müller, Andreas; Zbinden, Rainer

2017-04-01

A Medtronic MICRA transcatheter pacing system (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN, USA) was implanted in an 86-year-old patient with sick sinus syndrome and left bundle branch block after transfemoral aortic valve implantation. During implantation she developed a persistent complete heart block due to manipulation with the large-bore delivery catheter. Two weeks later, acute pacemaker dysfunction occurred due to massive increase of pacing threshold and impedance without obvious pacemaker dislocation or myocardial perforation. Recurrent capture failure was seen with pacing output set at 5 V/1.0 ms. Hence, microdislocation or fixation of the tines in the right ventricular trabeculae has to be assumed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Transportable Payload Operations Control Center reusable software: Building blocks for quality ground data systems

Science.gov (United States)

Mahmot, Ron; Koslosky, John T.; Beach, Edward; Schwarz, Barbara

1994-01-01

The Mission Operations Division (MOD) at Goddard Space Flight Center builds Mission Operations Centers which are used by Flight Operations Teams to monitor and control satellites. Reducing system life cycle costs through software reuse has always been a priority of the MOD. The MOD's Transportable Payload Operations Control Center development team established an extensive library of 14 subsystems with over 100,000 delivered source instructions of reusable, generic software components. Nine TPOCC-based control centers to date support 11 satellites and achieved an average software reuse level of more than 75 percent. This paper shares experiences of how the TPOCC building blocks were developed and how building block developer's, mission development teams, and users are all part of the process.

Enhancing Health-Care Services with Mixed Reality Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Stantchev, Vladimir

This work presents a development approach for mixed reality systems in health care. Although health-care service costs account for 5-15% of GDP in developed countries the sector has been remarkably resistant to the introduction of technology-supported optimizations. Digitalization of data storing and processing in the form of electronic patient records (EPR) and hospital information systems (HIS) is a first necessary step. Contrary to typical business functions (e.g., accounting or CRM) a health-care service is characterized by a knowledge intensive decision process and usage of specialized devices ranging from stethoscopes to complex surgical systems. Mixed reality systems can help fill the gap between highly patient-specific health-care services that need a variety of technical resources on the one side and the streamlined process flow that typical process supporting information systems expect on the other side. To achieve this task, we present a development approach that includes an evaluation of existing tasks and processes within the health-care service and the information systems that currently support the service, as well as identification of decision paths and actions that can benefit from mixed reality systems. The result is a mixed reality system that allows a clinician to monitor the elements of the physical world and to blend them with virtual information provided by the systems. He or she can also plan and schedule treatments and operations in the digital world depending on status information from this mixed reality.

Electric markets and services of the system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carbajo, A.

2007-01-01

Electricity cannot be stored in significant quantities and requires generation and demand be balanced instantly in order to control the frequency. This means that the electric system must be equipped with specific devices in order to ensure this dynamic balance. Of the services required by the electric system, some are mandatory for the generators, while others are voluntary, these last ones being those supplied under market schemes. On the other hand, the commitment of the Spanish electric system to incorporate a significant volume of renewable energy, due to its intermittent properties, demands that these adjustment services use a greater volume of this energy in order to ensure the reliability of the system at all times. Finally, securing the Iberian electric market implies that there might be variations in these services - not only in the volume but also in their characteristics. (Author)

Role of support services in Jaduguda mine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roy, Pinaki; Bannerjee, S.N.; Srinivasan, M.N.; Radhakrishnan, V.N.; Khanwalkar, S.D.

1991-01-01

This paper highlights the role of the supporting services which are divided into two main groups. Group A consists of services rendered by survey, planning, geology and physics sub-groups. The survey sub-group enforces the directional controls of the various lay-outs, the underground geology sub-group establishes the parameters for the development of drives and stop blocks while the physics section supplies the data regarding grade and thickness and exercises the ore quality control. The techniques evolved in giving these supports to the production system is described. Diamond drilling of holes through rock formation have been successfully used for transporting stowing sand and for draining accumulated water in the levels to respective sumps besides its normal use for underground exploration. Group B consists of engineering services. With limited mining machinery in the early sixties, the mechanical engineering services have taken significant strides for servicing today's equipments consisting of drill jumbos, hydro-pneumatic trackless loaders. Alimak raises climbers, diesel locomotives and mechanised ore transfer systems besides servicing the vital area of modern koepe system of friction winding where Jaduguda has already been a fore-runner in the country. Electrical engineering services basically maintain the electrical systems and equipments both permanent and extensions as mining areas progress in depth. Indigenisation of imported equipments and spares for them and modernisation in certain key areas has been attempted successfully over the years. Civil engineering services are mostly confined to strengthening support system for mine tunnels and construction of ore transfer passes for stopping. (author). 3 figs

Measuring health systems strength and its impact: experiences from the African Health Initiative.

Science.gov (United States)

Sherr, Kenneth; Fernandes, Quinhas; Kanté, Almamy M; Bawah, Ayaga; Condo, Jeanine; Mutale, Wilbroad

2017-12-21

Health systems are essential platforms for accessible, quality health services, and population health improvements. Global health initiatives have dramatically increased health resources; however, funding to strengthen health systems has not increased commensurately, partially due to concerns about health system complexity and evidence gaps demonstrating health outcome improvements. In 2009, the African Health Initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation began supporting Population Health Implementation and Training Partnership projects in five sub-Saharan African countries (Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia) to catalyze significant advances in strengthening health systems. This manuscript reflects on the experience of establishing an evaluation framework to measure health systems strength, and associate measures with health outcomes, as part of this Initiative. Using the World Health Organization's health systems building block framework, the Partnerships present novel approaches to measure health systems building blocks and summarize data across and within building blocks to facilitate analytic procedures. Three Partnerships developed summary measures spanning the building blocks using principal component analysis (Ghana and Tanzania) or the balanced scorecard (Zambia). Other Partnerships developed summary measures to simplify multiple indicators within individual building blocks, including health information systems (Mozambique), and service delivery (Rwanda). At the end of the project intervention period, one to two key informants from each Partnership's leadership team were asked to list - in rank order - the importance of the six building blocks in relation to their intervention. Though there were differences across Partnerships, service delivery and information systems were reported to be the most common focus of interventions, followed by health workforce and leadership and governance. Medical products, vaccines and technologies, and

Closure of connection to off-site DNS services from within CERN

CERN Multimedia

IT Department

2008-01-01

The internet Domain Name System (DNS) service is a mechanism which translates the names of computers into IP addresses (a sort of telephone book). For reasons of security, users of computers on the CERN site are required to use only the DNS services supported centrally by IT. This is in order to avoid possible breaches of the CERN Central Firewall as well as assorted vulnerabilities which have recently been exploited in DNS code by criminals. The DNS service uses IP port 53, which is already blocked coming into CERN, and which will be blocked in the outward direction from 28 October. For correctly configured CERN machines or any portable using automatic configuration (via the DHCP protocol), this change will be transparent. However, portable machines brought onto the CERN site which are not set up to use DHCP will need to have the IP address of the CERN DNS services correctly set in their configuration. How to do this is explained in http://cern.ch/dns. In case of questions...

Advanced web services

CERN Document Server

Bouguettaya, Athman; Daniel, Florian

2013-01-01

Web services and Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) have become thriving areas of academic research, joint university/industry research projects, and novel IT products on the market. SOC is the computing paradigm that uses Web services as building blocks for the engineering of composite, distributed applications out of the reusable application logic encapsulated by Web services. Web services could be considered the best-known and most standardized technology in use today for distributed computing over the Internet. This book is the second installment of a two-book collection covering the state-o

Clustering of GPS velocities in the Mojave Block, southeastern California

Science.gov (United States)

Savage, James C.; Simpson, Robert W.

2013-01-01

We find subdivisions within the Mojave Block using cluster analysis to identify groupings in the velocities observed at GPS stations there. The clusters are represented on a fault map by symbols located at the positions of the GPS stations, each symbol representing the cluster to which the velocity of that GPS station belongs. Fault systems that separate the clusters are readily identified on such a map. The most significant representation as judged by the gap test involves 4 clusters within the Mojave Block. The fault systems bounding the clusters from east to west are 1) the faults defining the eastern boundary of the Northeast Mojave Domain extended southward to connect to the Hector Mine rupture, 2) the Calico-Paradise fault system, 3) the Landers-Blackwater fault system, and 4) the Helendale-Lockhart fault system. This division of the Mojave Block is very similar to that proposed by Meade and Hager. However, no cluster boundary coincides with the Garlock Fault, the northern boundary of the Mojave Block. Rather, the clusters appear to continue without interruption from the Mojave Block north into the southern Walker Lane Belt, similar to the continuity across the Garlock Fault of the shear zone along the Blackwater-Little Lake fault system observed by Peltzer et al. Mapped traces of individual faults in the Mojave Block terminate within the block and do not continue across the Garlock Fault [Dokka and Travis, ].

47 CFR 24.709 - Eligibility for licenses for frequency Blocks C or F.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

..., revenue from operations or other investments, business development, or expanded service shall not be... block licenses (1895-1900 MHz paired with 1975-1980 MHz); (B) For Tier 2 BTAs, two of the 10 MHz C block licenses (1895-1900 MHz paired with 1975-1980 MHz; 1900-1905 MHz paired with 1980-1985 MHz) and all 15 MHz...

49 CFR 570.59 - Service brake system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 10,000 Pounds § 570.59 Service brake system. (a) Service brake performance. Compliance with any one of the following performance criteria will satisfy the requirements of this section. Verify that tire...

Integration between anticipatory blocking and redox signaling by the peroxiredoxin/thioredoxin/thioredoxin-reductase system.

Science.gov (United States)

Selvaggio, Gianluca; Coelho, Pedro M B M; Salvador, Armindo

2014-10-01

Cells are occasionally exposed to high H2O2 concentrations, often preceding exposure to other electrophylic compounds. Both H2O2 and these compounds can irreversibly modify protein thiols, with deleterious consequences. Induction of enzymatic defenses against those agents is too slow to avoid significant damage. Cells may solve this conundrum by reversibly "blocking" the thiols once H2O2 concentrations begin to increase. We term this mechanism "anticipatory blocking" because it acts in anticipation of irreversible damage upon detection of early signs of stress. Here we examine the design requirements for the Peroxiredoxin/Thioredoxin/Thioredoxin-Reductase/Protein-Dithiol System (PTTRDS) to effectively integrate H2O2 signaling and anticipatory blocking of protein dithiols as disulfides, and we compared them to the designs found in cells. To that effect, we developed a minimal model of the PTTRDS, and we defined a set of quantitative performance criteria that embody the requirements for (a) efficient scavenging capacity, (b) low NADPH consumption, (c) effective signal propagation, and (d) effective anticipatory blocking. We then sought the design principles (relationships among rate constants and species concentrations) that warrant fulfillment of all these criteria. Experimental data indicates that the design of the PTTRDS in human erythrocytes fulfills these principles and thus accomplishes effective integration between anticipatory blocking, antioxidant protection and redox signaling. A more general analysis suggests that the same principles hold in a wide variety of cell types and organisms. We acknowledge grants PEst-C/SAU/LA0001/2013-2014, PEst-OE/QUI/UI0612/2013, FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-020978 (PTDC/QUI-BIQ/119657/2010) financed by FEDER through the "Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade, COMPETE" and by national funds through "FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia". Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Theory of circuit block switch-off

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Henzler

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Switching-off unused circuit blocks is a promising approach to supress static leakage currents in ultra deep sub-micron CMOS digital systems. Basic performance parameters of Circuit Block Switch-Off (CBSO schemes are defined and their dependence on basic circuit parameters is estimated. Therefore the design trade-off between strong leakage suppression in idle mode and adequate dynamic performance in active mode can be supported by simple analytic investigations. Additionally, a guideline for the estimation of the minimum time for which a block deactivation is useful is derived.

PERIPHERAL BLOCK ANESTHESIA OF UPPER EXTREMITY AND ITS COMPLICATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hakan Tapar

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Successful peripheral blocks and selection of appropriate technique according to surgery is possible with a good knowledge of anatomy. Regional peripheral block anesthesia of upper extremity which applied by single injection to plexus brachialis is the most recommended method of anesthesia in daily surgical procedures. The most important advantages of peripheral nerve blocks which are type of regional anesthesia according to general anesthesia and central blocks are less effect to respiration and hemodynamics and shortness of recovery time. If a plexus brachialis catheter is placed, control of pain is provided without using systemic narcotic analgesic. With these advantages; rare life threatening potential complications can be seen which are pneumothorax, hematoma, neuritis, allergy, systemic and neurologic complications. In this compilation we aimed to review again the complications of upper extremity nerve blocks according to block type. [J Contemp Med 2012; 2(3.000: 195-200

Block Grants and the New Federalism: Boon or Bane.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Ben

1983-01-01

The new federalism is explained, and reaction to block grants in California is described. Some alternatives to current proposals and programs, effects on research in the social sciences and human services, and conclusions about the prospects for the new federalism proposals are discussed. (MSE)

A reference model for space data system interconnection services

Science.gov (United States)

Pietras, John; Theis, Gerhard

1993-01-01

The widespread adoption of standard packet-based data communication protocols and services for spaceflight missions provides the foundation for other standard space data handling services. These space data handling services can be defined as increasingly sophisticated processing of data or information received from lower-level services, using a layering approach made famous in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Open System Interconnection Reference Model (OSI-RM). The Space Data System Interconnection Reference Model (SDSI-RM) incorporates the conventions of the OSIRM to provide a framework within which a complete set of space data handling services can be defined. The use of the SDSI-RM is illustrated through its application to data handling services and protocols that have been defined by, or are under consideration by, the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS).

Minimum BER Receiver Filters with Block Memory for Uplink DS-CDMA Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Debbah Mérouane

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract The problem of synchronous multiuser receiver design in the case of direct-sequence single-antenna code division multiple access (DS-CDMA uplink networks is studied over frequency selective fading channels. An exact expression for the bit error rate (BER is derived in the case of BPSK signaling. Moreover, an algorithm is proposed for finding the finite impulse response (FIR receiver filters with block memory such that the exact BER of the active users is minimized. Several properties of the minimum BER FIR filters with block memory are identified. The algorithm performance is found for scenarios with different channel qualities, spreading code lengths, receiver block memory size, near-far effects, and channel mismatch. For the BPSK constellation, the proposed FIR receiver structure with block memory has significant better BER with respect to and near-far resistance than the corresponding minimum mean square error (MMSE filters with block memory.

Cellient™ automated cell block versus traditional cell block preparation: a comparison of morphologic features and immunohistochemical staining.

Science.gov (United States)

Wagner, David G; Russell, Donna K; Benson, Jenna M; Schneider, Ashley E; Hoda, Rana S; Bonfiglio, Thomas A

2011-10-01

Traditional cell block (TCB) sections serve as an important diagnostic adjunct to cytologic smears but are also used today as a reliable preparation for immunohistochemical (IHC) studies. There are many ways to prepare a cell block and the methods continue to be revised. In this study, we compare the TCB with the Cellient™ automated cell block system. Thirty-five cell blocks were obtained from 16 benign and 19 malignant nongynecologic cytology specimens at a large university teaching hospital and prepared according to TCB and Cellient protocols. Cell block sections from both methods were compared for possible differences in various morphologic features and immunohistochemical staining patterns. In the 16 benign cases, no significant morphologic differences were found between the TCB and Cellient cell block sections. For the 19 malignant cases, some noticeable differences in the nuclear chromatin and cellularity were identified, although statistical significance was not attained. Immunohistochemical or special stains were performed on 89% of the malignant cases (17/19). Inadequate cellularity precluded full evaluation in 23% of Cellient cell block IHC preparations (4/17). Of the malignant cases with adequate cellularity (13/17), the immunohistochemical staining patterns from the different methods were identical in 53% of cases. The traditional and Cellient cell block sections showed similar morphologic and immunohistochemical staining patterns. The only significant difference between the two methods concerned the lower overall cell block cellularity identified during immunohistochemical staining in the Cellient cell block sections. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Improving methodology in open vessel digestion with a graphite heating block (T7)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kainrath, P.; Conrads, B.; Ross, A.

2002-01-01

Full text: Open block digestion systems have been very popular in environmental analysis over the past decades, but have consistently suffered from the major drawback of their sensitivity against corrosion and the subsequent risk of contamination. Therefore block digestion systems have not been considered state-of-the-art technology in trace and ultra trace sample preparation. Graphite block digestion systems are well established in North America and are recently becoming more frequently considered in Europe. These systems overcome the deficiencies of the traditional systems, made from stainless steel or aluminum, because the block is manufactured from graphite and typically coated with a fluoro-polymer to present the possibility metallic contamination from the surface of the system during the handling of the samples. Graphite block systems present an alternative to the current mainstream technology of open and closed vessel microwave assisted digestion systems, as they allow large numbers of samples to be digested simultaneously, thus overcoming one of the major weaknesses of closed vessel systems. More recently a number of improvements in the technology has been developed for graphite block digestion systems and studies have been performed to evaluate the effects of such improvements. The paper presented will deal with the technological improvements: monitoring and control of sample temperature vs. monitoring of block temperature, elimination of cross contamination effects during open vessel block digestion, evaporation of samples for pre-concentration or multiple digestion steps, addressing the needs of various labs and applications for block digesters. The effects of those developments will be discussed; application examples and finally an outlook into possible future trends for graphite block digestion systems will be given. (author)

Formation and Characterization of Anisotropic Block Copolymer Gels

Science.gov (United States)

Liaw, Chya Yan; Joester, Derk; Burghardt, Wesley; Shull, Kenneth

2012-02-01

Cylindrical micelles formed from block copolymer solutions closely mimic biological fibers that are presumed to guide mineral formation during biosynthesis of hard tissues like bone. The goal of our work is to use acrylic block copolymers as oriented templates for studying mineral formation reactions in model systems where the structure of the underlying template is well characterized and reproducible. Self-consistent mean field theory is first applied to investigate the thermodynamically stable micellar morphologies as a function of temperature and block copolymer composition. Small-angle x-ray scattering, optical birefringence and shear rheometry are used to study the morphology development during thermal processing. Initial experiments are based on a thermally-reversible alcohol-soluble system that can be converted to an aqueous gel by hydrolysis of a poly(t-butyl methacrylate) block to a poly(methacrylic acid) block. Aligned cylindrical domains are formed in the alcohol-based system when shear is applied in an appropriate temperature regime, which is below the critical micelle temperature but above the temperature at which the relaxation time of the gels becomes too large. Processing strategies for producing the desired cylindrical morphologies are being developed that account for both thermodynamic and kinetic effects.

Block copolymer libraries: modular versatility of the macromolecular Lego system.

Science.gov (United States)

Lohmeijer, Bas G G; Wouters, Daan; Yin, Zhihui; Schubert, Ulrich S

2004-12-21

The synthesis and characterization of a new 4 x 4 library of block copolymers based on polystyrene and poly(ethylene oxide) connected by an asymmetrical octahedral bis(terpyridine) ruthenium complex at the block junction are described, while initial studies on the thin film morphology of the components of the library are presented by the use of Atomic Force Microscopy, demonstrating the impact of a library approach to derive structure-property relationships.

E-Block: A Tangible Programming Tool with Graphical Blocks

OpenAIRE

Danli Wang; Yang Zhang; Shengyong Chen

2013-01-01

This paper designs a tangible programming tool, E-Block, for children aged 5 to 9 to experience the preliminary understanding of programming by building blocks. With embedded artificial intelligence, the tool defines the programming blocks with the sensors as the input and enables children to write programs to complete the tasks in the computer. The symbol on the programming block's surface is used to help children understanding the function of each block. The sequence information is transfer...

A Context-Aware S-Health Service System for Drivers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jingkun Chang

2017-03-01

Full Text Available As a stressful and sensitive task, driving can be disturbed by various factors from the health condition of the driver to the environmental variables of the vehicle. Continuous monitoring of driving hazards and providing the most appropriate business services to meet actual needs can guarantee safe driving and make great use of the existing information resources and business services. However, there is no in-depth research on the perception of a driver’s health status or the provision of customized business services in case of various hazardous situations. In order to constantly monitor the health status of the drivers and react to abnormal situations, this paper proposes a context-aware service system providing a configurable architecture for the design and implementation of the smart health service system for safe driving, which can perceive a driver’s health status and provide helpful services to the driver. With the context-aware technology to construct a smart health services system for safe driving, this is the first time that such a service system has been implemented in practice. Additionally, an assessment model is proposed to mitigate the impact of the acceptable abnormal status and, thus, reduce the unnecessary invocation of the services. With regard to different assessed situations, the business services can be invoked for the driver to adapt to hazardous situations according to the services configuration model, which can take full advantage of the existing information resources and business services. The evaluation results indicate that the alteration of the observed status in a valid time range T can be tolerated and the frequency of the service invocation can be reduced.

THE WEB SERVICE PROTOTYPE ON DELIVERY SYSTEM IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ENTERPRISE SERVICE BUS

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Ghifari Munawar

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The main component of the logistics system is a delivery goods system. It has an enormous role in managing the entire historical shipment data from the start point (origin to the end of delivery (destination. This research aims to implement the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB on delivery systems as a middleware in the integration data process. ESB technology used in this research is NServiceBus. The stages of research using a prototype model to develop a web service that suits with theirs needs. Testing is done by tested two aspects of the exchange messages; the performance aspect and the aspect of independence. The test results show that the performance of the web service with the ESB application is better than the non-ESB user and Web services developed to have a good level of independence (loosely coupling.

The seasonal predictability of blocking frequency in two seasonal prediction systems (CMCC, Met-Office) and the associated representation of low-frequency variability.

Science.gov (United States)

Athanasiadis, Panos; Gualdi, Silvio; Scaife, Adam A.; Bellucci, Alessio; Hermanson, Leon; MacLachlan, Craig; Arribas, Alberto; Materia, Stefano; Borelli, Andrea

2014-05-01

Low-frequency variability is a fundamental component of the atmospheric circulation. Extratropical teleconnections, the occurrence of blocking and the slow modulation of the jet streams and storm tracks are all different aspects of low-frequency variability. Part of the latter is attributed to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere and is inherently unpredictable. On the other hand, primarily as a response to boundary forcings, tropospheric low-frequency variability includes components that are potentially predictable. Seasonal forecasting faces the difficult task of predicting these components. Particularly referring to the extratropics, the current generation of seasonal forecasting systems seem to be approaching this target by realistically initializing most components of the climate system, using higher resolution and utilizing large ensemble sizes. Two seasonal prediction systems (Met-Office GloSea and CMCC-SPS-v1.5) are analyzed in terms of their representation of different aspects of extratropical low-frequency variability. The current operational Met-Office system achieves unprecedented high scores in predicting the winter-mean phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO, corr. 0.74 at 500 hPa) and the Pacific-N. American pattern (PNA, corr. 0.82). The CMCC system, considering its small ensemble size and course resolution, also achieves good scores (0.42 for NAO, 0.51 for PNA). Despite these positive features, both models suffer from biases in low-frequency variance, particularly in the N. Atlantic. Consequently, it is found that their intrinsic variability patterns (sectoral EOFs) differ significantly from the observed, and the known teleconnections are underrepresented. Regarding the representation of N. hemisphere blocking, after bias correction both systems exhibit a realistic climatology of blocking frequency. In this assessment, instantaneous blocking and large-scale persistent blocking events are identified using daily geopotential height fields at

Models for Trustworthy Service and Process Oriented Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lopez, Hugo Andres

2010-01-01

Service and process-oriented systems promise to provide more efective business and work processes and more flexible and adaptable enterprise IT systems. However, the technologies and standards are still young and unstable, making research in their theoretical foundations increasingly important. Our...... studies focus on two dichotomies: the global/local views of service interactions, and their imperative/declarative specification. A global view of service interactions describes a process as a protocol for interactions, as e.g. an UML sequence diagram or a WS-CDL choreography. A local view describes...... thesis is that we can provide a theoretical framework based on typed concurrent process and concurrent constraint calculi for the specication, analysis and verication of service and process oriented system designs which bridges the global and local view and combines the imperative and declarative...

Minimum BER Receiver Filters with Block Memory for Uplink DS-CDMA Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mérouane Debbah

2008-05-01

Full Text Available The problem of synchronous multiuser receiver design in the case of direct-sequence single-antenna code division multiple access (DS-CDMA uplink networks is studied over frequency selective fading channels. An exact expression for the bit error rate (BER is derived in the case of BPSK signaling. Moreover, an algorithm is proposed for finding the finite impulse response (FIR receiver filters with block memory such that the exact BER of the active users is minimized. Several properties of the minimum BER FIR filters with block memory are identified. The algorithm performance is found for scenarios with different channel qualities, spreading code lengths, receiver block memory size, near-far effects, and channel mismatch. For the BPSK constellation, the proposed FIR receiver structure with block memory has significant better BER with respect to Eb/N0 and near-far resistance than the corresponding minimum mean square error (MMSE filters with block memory.

NATO Advanced Research Institute on Health Services Systems

CERN Document Server

Werff, Albert; Hirsch, Gary; Barnard, Keith

1984-01-01

The Advanced Research Institute on "Health Services Systems" was held under the auspices of the NATO Special Programme Panel on Systems Science as a part of the NATO Science Committee's continuous effort to promote the advancement of science through international cooperation. A special word is said in this respect supra by Pro­ fessor Checkland, Chairman of the Systems Science Panel. The Advanced Research Institute (ARI) was organized for the purpose of bringing together senior scientists to seek a consensus on the assessment of the present state of knowledge on the specific topic of "health services systems" and to present views and recom­ mendations for future health services research directions, which should be of value to both the scientific community and the people in charge of reorienting health services. The conference was structured so as to permit the assembly of a variety of complementary viewpoints through intensive group discussions to be the basis of this final report. Invitees were selected fr...

Esclerosis sistémica complicada con síncope y bloqueo AV completo Systemic sclerosis complicated with syncope and complete AV block

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Femenía

2010-10-01

Full Text Available La esclerosis sistémica es una compleja enfermedad que afecta el tejido conectivo, el sistema vascular y el sistema inmunológico, y se caracteriza por fibrosis cutánea y de órganos viscerales. Los bloqueos de rama y los hemibloqueos se presentan en el 25 a 75% de los casos y constituyen predictores independientes de mortalidad. Los bloqueos auriculoventriculares de segundo o tercer grado son muy raros. Presentamos el caso de una mujer de 47 años de edad, con diagnóstico de esclerosis sistémica, quien presenta episodio sincopal secundario a bloqueo auriculoventricular completo con necesidad de implante de marcapasos definitivo.Systemic sclerosis is a complex disease that affects the connective tissue, the vascular system and the immune system. It typically produces skin and organ fibrosis. Cardiac bundle branch blocks and fascicular blocks occur in 25-75% of the cases and were found to be independent predictors of mortality. Second and third degree atrioventricular block are very rare. We present the case of a 47 year-old female with diagnosis of systemic sclerosis, presented with syncope secondary to complete atrioventricular block requiring permanent pacemaker implantation.

Multimedia services in intelligent environments advances in recommender systems

CERN Document Server

Virvou, Maria; Jain, Lakhmi

2013-01-01

Multimedia services are now commonly used in various activities in the daily lives of humans. Related application areas include services that allow access to large depositories of information, digital libraries, e-learning and e-education, e-government and e-governance, e-commerce and e-auctions, e-entertainment, e-health and e-medicine, and e-legal services, as well as their mobile counterparts (i.e., m-services). Despite the tremendous growth of multimedia services over the recent years, there is an increasing demand for their further development. This demand is driven by the ever-increasing desire of society for easy accessibility to information in friendly, personalized and adaptive environments. In this book at hand, we examine recent Advances in Recommender Systems. Recommender systems are crucial in multimedia services, as they aim at protecting the service users from information overload. The book includes nine chapters, which present various recent research results in recommender systems. This resear...

Systemic Model for Optimal Regulation in Public Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lucica Matei

2006-05-01

Full Text Available The current paper inscribes within those approaching the issue of public services from the interdisciplinary perspective. Public service development and imposing standards of efficiency and effectiveness, as well as for citizens’ satisfaction bring in front line the systemic modelling and establishing optimal policies for organisation and functioning of public services. The issue under discussion imposes an interface with powerful determinations of social nature. Consequently, the most adequate modelling might be that with a probabilistic and statistic nature. The fundamental idea of this paper, that obviously can be broadly developed, starts with assimilating the way of organisation and functioning of a public service with a waiting thread, to which some hypotheses are associated concerning the order of provision, performance measurement through costs or waiting time in the system etc. We emphasise the openness and dynamics of the public service system, as well as modelling by turning into account the statistic knowledge and researches, and we do not make detailed remarks on the cybernetic characteristics of this system. The optimal adjustment is achieved through analysis on the feedback and its comparison with the current standards or good practices.

Thermosensitive Self-Assembling Block Copolymers as Drug Delivery Systems

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Giovanni Filippo Palmieri

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Self-assembling block copolymers (poloxamers, PEG/PLA and PEG/PLGA diblock and triblock copolymers, PEG/polycaprolactone, polyether modified poly(Acrylic Acid with large solubility difference between hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties have the property of forming temperature dependent micellar aggregates and, after a further temperature increase, of gellifying due to micelle aggregation or packing. This property enables drugs to be mixed in the sol state at room temperature then the solution can be injected into a target tissue, forming a gel depot in-situ at body temperature with the goal of providing drug release control. The presence of micellar structures that give rise to thermoreversible gels, characterized by low toxicity and mucomimetic properties, makes this delivery system capable of solubilizing water-insoluble or poorly soluble drugs and of protecting labile molecules such as proteins and peptide drugs.

Obstacles in the Utilisation of Maternal Health Care Services in Murarai-II C.D. Block, Birbhum District, West Bengal, India

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Alokananda Ghosh

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Improving maternal health was one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs and now it is one of the targets of 17 point Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs. The utilisation of Maternal Health Care Services (MHCSs is a complex phenomenon and it is influenced by several factors, like-health care seeking behaviour of the cohorts belonging to different socio-economic and cultural background, distance of the facility centres, type and conditions of the roads including undulating surface, transportation cost, type and availability of transportation mode along with the factors related to the accountability and surveillances of the health care services. Therefore, clear understanding and discussion is needed to draw an association between MHCSs and its influential factors. The objectives of the study are to estimate the impact of accessibility on the underserved status of MHCSs and on the utilisation of MHCSs through paucity index. In addition, the study aims to evaluate the causal relationships between underserved situation and obstacle score with the paucity index of MHCS utilisation. The empirical observation unfolds that the provision and utilisation of MHCSs are strongly dependent on accessibility and distance. The situation is aggravating for proper delivery of services, which is responsible for the increasing obstacle score and paucity index, especially in remote sub- centres of Murarai-II C.D. Block of Birbhum District.

A Framework and Improvements of the Korea Cloud Services Certification System.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeon, Hangoo; Seo, Kwang-Kyu

2015-01-01

Cloud computing service is an evolving paradigm that affects a large part of the ICT industry and provides new opportunities for ICT service providers such as the deployment of new business models and the realization of economies of scale by increasing efficiency of resource utilization. However, despite benefits of cloud services, there are some obstacles to adopt such as lack of assessing and comparing the service quality of cloud services regarding availability, security, and reliability. In order to adopt the successful cloud service and activate it, it is necessary to establish the cloud service certification system to ensure service quality and performance of cloud services. This paper proposes a framework and improvements of the Korea certification system of cloud service. In order to develop it, the critical issues related to service quality, performance, and certification of cloud service are identified and the systematic framework for the certification system of cloud services and service provider domains are developed. Improvements of the developed Korea certification system of cloud services are also proposed.

A Framework and Improvements of the Korea Cloud Services Certification System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hangoo Jeon

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Cloud computing service is an evolving paradigm that affects a large part of the ICT industry and provides new opportunities for ICT service providers such as the deployment of new business models and the realization of economies of scale by increasing efficiency of resource utilization. However, despite benefits of cloud services, there are some obstacles to adopt such as lack of assessing and comparing the service quality of cloud services regarding availability, security, and reliability. In order to adopt the successful cloud service and activate it, it is necessary to establish the cloud service certification system to ensure service quality and performance of cloud services. This paper proposes a framework and improvements of the Korea certification system of cloud service. In order to develop it, the critical issues related to service quality, performance, and certification of cloud service are identified and the systematic framework for the certification system of cloud services and service provider domains are developed. Improvements of the developed Korea certification system of cloud services are also proposed.

A Framework and Improvements of the Korea Cloud Services Certification System

Science.gov (United States)

Jeon, Hangoo

2015-01-01

Cloud computing service is an evolving paradigm that affects a large part of the ICT industry and provides new opportunities for ICT service providers such as the deployment of new business models and the realization of economies of scale by increasing efficiency of resource utilization. However, despite benefits of cloud services, there are some obstacles to adopt such as lack of assessing and comparing the service quality of cloud services regarding availability, security, and reliability. In order to adopt the successful cloud service and activate it, it is necessary to establish the cloud service certification system to ensure service quality and performance of cloud services. This paper proposes a framework and improvements of the Korea certification system of cloud service. In order to develop it, the critical issues related to service quality, performance, and certification of cloud service are identified and the systematic framework for the certification system of cloud services and service provider domains are developed. Improvements of the developed Korea certification system of cloud services are also proposed. PMID:26125049

Possibilities of a Personal Laser Scanning System for Forest Mapping and Ecosystem Services

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Xinlian; Kukko, Antero; Kaartinen, Harri; Hyyppä, Juha; Yu, Xiaowei; Jaakkola, Anttoni; Wang, Yunsheng

2014-01-01

A professional-quality, personal laser scanning (PLS) system for collecting tree attributes was demonstrated in this paper. The applied system, which is wearable by human operators, consists of a multi-constellation navigation system and an ultra-high-speed phase-shift laser scanner mounted on a rigid baseplate and consisting of a single sensor block. A multipass-corridor-mapping method was developed to process PLS data and a 2,000 m2 forest plot was utilized in the test. The tree stem detection accuracy was 82.6%; the root mean square error (RMSE) of the estimates of tree diameter at breast height (DBH) was 5.06 cm; the RMSE of the estimates of tree location was 0.38 m. The relative RMSE of the DBH estimates was 14.63%. The results showed, for the first time, the potential of the PLS system in mapping large forest plots. Further research on mapping accuracy in various forest conditions, data correction methods and multi-sensoral positioning techniques is needed. The utilization of this system in different applications, such as harvester operations, should also be explored. In addition to collecting tree-level and plot-level data for forest inventory, other possible applications of PLS for forest ecosystem services include mapping of canopy gaps, measuring leaf area index of large areas, documenting and visualizing forest routes feasible for recreation, hiking and berry and mushroom picking. PMID:24434879

How Offshoring Elicits Reconfiguration of the Service Production System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandl, Kristin; Mol, Michael J.; Petersen, Bent

Service production systems can be seen as a structure consisting of task execution, resources executing tasks and the service output received by the client. Offshoring acts as an exogenous shock to such a service production system. Drawing on practice theory and applying a multiple case methodology...... of the impact of offshoring and to practice theory....

Web services for distributed and interoperable hydro-information systems

Science.gov (United States)

Horak, J.; Orlik, A.; Stromsky, J.

2008-03-01

Web services support the integration and interoperability of Web-based applications and enable machine-to-machine interaction. The concepts of web services and open distributed architecture were applied to the development of T-DSS, the prototype customised for web based hydro-information systems. T-DSS provides mapping services, database related services and access to remote components, with special emphasis placed on the output flexibility (e.g. multilingualism), where SOAP web services are mainly used for communication. The remote components are represented above all by remote data and mapping services (e.g. meteorological predictions), modelling and analytical systems (currently HEC-HMS, MODFLOW and additional utilities), which support decision making in water management.

Joint inventory control and pricing in a service-inventory system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marand, Ata Jalili; Li, Hongyan Jenny; Thorstenson, Anders

2017-01-01

This study addresses joint inventory control and pricing decisions for a service-inventory system. In such a system both an on-hand inventory item and a positive service time are required to fulfill customer demands. The service-inventory system also captures main features of the classical...... inventory systems with a positive processing time, e.g., make-to-order systems. In this study, the service-inventory system is modeled as an M/M/1 queue in which the customer arrival rate is price dependent. The inventory of an individual item is continuously reviewed under an (r,Q) policy....... The replenishment lead times of the inventory are exponentially distributed. Furthermore, customers arriving during stock-out periods are lost. The stochastic customer inter-arrival times, service times, and inventory replenishment lead times cause the high complexity of the problem and the difficulty in solving it...

Non-Markovianity in the collision model with environmental block

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Jiasen; Yu, Chang-shui

2018-05-01

We present an extended collision model to simulate the dynamics of an open quantum system. In our model, the unit to represent the environment is, instead of a single particle, a block which consists of a number of environment particles. The introduced blocks enable us to study the effects of different strategies of system–environment interactions and states of the blocks on the non-Markovianities. We demonstrate our idea in the Gaussian channels of an all-optical system and derive a necessary and sufficient condition of non-Markovianity for such channels. Moreover, we show the equivalence of our criterion to the non-Markovian quantum jump in the simulation of the pure damping process of a single-mode field. We also show that the non-Markovianity of the channel working in the strategy that the system collides with environmental particles in each block in a certain order will be affected by the size of the block and the embedded entanglement and the effects of heating and squeezing the vacuum environmental state will quantitatively enhance the non-Markovianity.

Brainstem Anesthesia after Retrobulbar Block: A Case Report and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

BACKGROUND: Retro-bulbar anesthesia is one of the most common regional blocks used for intraocular surgeries. Complications associated with regional blocks may be limited to the eye or may be systemic. CASE REPORT: After a retro-bulbar block for glaucoma surgery, a 60-year-old man developed loss of ...

Towards Emulation-as-a-Service: Cloud Services for Versatile Digital Object Access

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dirk von Suchodoletz

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The changing world of IT services opens the chance to more tightly integrate digital long-term preservation into systems, both for commercial and end users. The emergence of cloud offerings re-centralizes services, and end users interact with them remotely through standardized (web-client applications on their various devices. This offers the chance to use partially the same concepts and methods to access obsolete computer environments and allows for more sustainable business processes. In order to provide a large variety of user-friendly remote emulation services, especially in combination with authentic performance and user experience, a distributed system model and architecture is required, suitable to run as a cloud service, allowing for the specialization both of memory institutions and third party service providers.The shift of the usually non-trivial task of the emulation of obsolete software environments from the end user to specialized providers can help to simplify digital preservation and access strategies. Besides offering their users better access to their holdings, libraries and archives may gain new business opportunities to offer services to a third party, such as businesses requiring authentic reproduction of digital objects and processes for legal reasons. This paper discusses cloud concepts as the next logical step for accessing original digital material. Emulation-as-a-Service (EaaS fills the gap between the successful demonstration of emulation strategies as a long term access strategy and it’s perceived availability and usability. EaaS can build upon the ground of research and prototypical implementations of previous projects, and reuse well established remote access technology.In this article we develop requirements and a system model, suitable for a distributed environment. We will discuss the building blocks of the core services as well as requirements regarding access management. Finally, we will try to present a

A product-service system approach to telehealth application design.

Science.gov (United States)

Flores-Vaquero, Paul; Tiwari, Ashutosh; Alcock, Jeffrey; Hutabarat, Windo; Turner, Chris

2016-06-01

A considerable proportion of current point-of-care devices do not offer a wide enough set of capabilities if they are to function in any telehealth system. There is a need for intermediate devices that lie between healthcare devices and service networks. The development of an application is suggested that allows for a smartphone to take the role of an intermediate device. This research seeks to identify the telehealth service requirements for long-term condition management using a product-service system approach. The use of product-service system has proven to be a suitable methodology for the design and development of telehealth smartphone applications. © The Author(s) 2014.

Sustainable quality systems for every Health Service

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Touzet, Rodolfo; Pittaluga, Roberto R.

2008-01-01

The implementation of a Quality system is an indispensable requirement to assure the protection and the radiological safety, especially in those facilities where the potential risks are important. One of the 'general conclusions' of the Conference of Malaga (to achieve the RPP) is also the implementation of quality systems. Lamentably the great majority of the Services of Health in the world, more than 95 %, has not nowadays any formal quality system but only any elements what can be named a 'natural quality system' that includes protocols of work, records of several processes, certified of training of the personnel and diverse practices that are realized in systematic form but that not always are documented. Most health services do not have the necessary means available to adhere quickly to international standards. At the same time the health services do not have either qualified or trained personnel to lead a certification or accreditation project and most of them do not have the resources available to hire external consultants, especially the public hospitals. The scenario described represents a challenge for the Regulatory Authorities who must determine 'how to ensure that installations comply with an acceptable standard of quality without it placing an impossible strain on their budget?' Due to these circumstances a 'Basic Guide' has developed for the implementation of a quality system in every Health Service that takes the elements as a foundation of the standard ISO - 9000:2000 and the standard for systems management GSR-3 of the IAEA. The criteria and the methodologies are showed in the presentation. (author)

Block copolymer systems: from single chain to self-assembled nanostructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Giacomelli, Cristiano; Schmidt, Vanessa; Aissou, Karim; Borsali, Redouane

2010-10-19

Recent advances in the field of macromolecular engineering applied to the fabrication of nanostructured materials using block copolymer chains as elementary building blocks are described in this feature article. By highlighting some of our work in the area and accounting for the contribution of other groups, we discuss the relationship between the physical-chemical properties of copolymer chains and the characteristics of nano-objects originating from their self-assembly in solution and in bulk, with emphasis on convenient strategies that allow for the control of composition, functionality, and topology at different levels of sophistication. In the case of micellar nanoparticles in solution, in particular, we present approaches leading to morphology selection via macromolecular architectural design, the functionalization of external solvent-philic shells with biomolecules (polysaccharides and proteins), and the maximization of micelle loading capacity by the suitable choice of solvent-phobic polymer segments. The fabrication of nanomaterials mediated by thin block copolymer films is also discussed. In this case, we emphasize the development of novel polymer chain manipulation strategies that ultimately allow for the preparation of precisely positioned nanodomains with a reduced number of defects via block-selective chemical reactivity. The challenges facing the soft matter community, the urgent demand to convert huge public and private investments into consumer products, and future possible directions in the field are also considered herein.

Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS) National Weather Service (NWS) Service Records and Retention System (SRRS) Data

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Service Records and Retention System (SRRS) is historical digital data set DSI-9949, a collection of products created by the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) and...

The SKY Model of Limited BlockChain in an App Ecosystem

OpenAIRE

Hegadekatti, Kartik; S G, Yatish; T J, Satish

2016-01-01

Mobile App based market is rapidly becoming popular. As such, it is an opportunity to bring hassle-free transactions to people’s mobile phones. But the multi-billion dollar App market pays a great amount of money in transaction costs and banking services. This paper provides a solution by integrating BlockChain technology with Mobile-App based economy. We first describe the various concepts involved in BlockChain and App technology. Then we deliberate on how the two can be brought together wi...

Density matrix renormalization group for a highly degenerate quantum system: Sliding environment block approach

Science.gov (United States)

Schmitteckert, Peter

2018-04-01

We present an infinite lattice density matrix renormalization group sweeping procedure which can be used as a replacement for the standard infinite lattice blocking schemes. Although the scheme is generally applicable to any system, its main advantages are the correct representation of commensurability issues and the treatment of degenerate systems. As an example we apply the method to a spin chain featuring a highly degenerate ground-state space where the new sweeping scheme provides an increase in performance as well as accuracy by many orders of magnitude compared to a recently published work.

Towards the VWO Annotation Service: a Success Story of the IMAGE RPI Expert Rating System

Science.gov (United States)

Reinisch, B. W.; Galkin, I. A.; Fung, S. F.; Benson, R. F.; Kozlov, A. V.; Khmyrov, G. M.; Garcia, L. N.

2010-12-01

Interpretation of Heliophysics wave data requires specialized knowledge of wave phenomena. Users of the virtual wave observatory (VWO) will greatly benefit from a data annotation service that will allow querying of data by phenomenon type, thus helping accomplish the VWO goal to make Heliophysics wave data searchable, understandable, and usable by the scientific community. Individual annotations can be sorted by phenomenon type and reduced into event lists (catalogs). However, in contrast to the event lists, annotation records allow a greater flexibility of collaborative management by more easily admitting operations of addition, revision, or deletion. They can therefore become the building blocks for an interactive Annotation Service with a suitable graphic user interface to the VWO middleware. The VWO Annotation Service vision is an interactive, collaborative sharing of domain expert knowledge with fellow scientists and students alike. An effective prototype of the VWO Annotation Service has been in operation at the University of Massachusetts Lowell since 2001. An expert rating system (ERS) was developed for annotating the IMAGE radio plasma imager (RPI) active sounding data containing 1.2 million plasmagrams. The RPI data analysts can use ERS to submit expert ratings of plasmagram features, such as presence of echo traces resulted from reflected RPI signals from distant plasma structures. Since its inception in 2001, the RPI ERS has accumulated 7351 expert plasmagram ratings in 16 phenomenon categories, together with free-text descriptions and other metadata. In addition to human expert ratings, the system holds 225,125 ratings submitted by the CORPRAL data prospecting software that employs a model of the human pre-attentive vision to select images potentially containing interesting features. The annotation records proved to be instrumental in a number of investigations where manual data exploration would have been prohibitively tedious and expensive

NANOSTRUCTURED METAL OXIDE CATALYSTS VIA BUILDING BLOCK SYNTHESES

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Craig E. Barnes

2013-03-05

A broadly applicable methodology has been developed to prepare new single site catalysts on silica supports. This methodology requires of three critical components: a rigid building block that will be the main structural and compositional component of the support matrix; a family of linking reagents that will be used to insert active metals into the matrix as well as cross link building blocks into a three dimensional matrix; and a clean coupling reaction that will connect building blocks and linking agents together in a controlled fashion. The final piece of conceptual strategy at the center of this methodology involves dosing the building block with known amounts of linking agents so that the targeted connectivity of a linking center to surrounding building blocks is obtained. Achieving targeted connectivities around catalytically active metals in these building block matrices is a critical element of the strategy by which single site catalysts are obtained. This methodology has been demonstrated with a model system involving only silicon and then with two metal-containing systems (titanium and vanadium). The effect that connectivity has on the reactivity of atomically dispersed titanium sites in silica building block matrices has been investigated in the selective oxidation of phenols to benezoquinones. 2-connected titanium sites are found to be five times as active (i.e. initial turnover frequencies) than 4-connected titanium sites (i.e. framework titanium sites).

Morphology-properties relationship on nanocomposite films based on poly(styrene-block-diene-block-styrene copolymers and silver nanoparticles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2011-02-01

Full Text Available A comparative study on the self-assembled nanostructured morphology and the rheological and mechanical properties of four different triblock copolymers, based on poly(styrene-block-diene-block-styrene and poly(styrene-block-diene-block-styrene matrices, and of their respective nanocomposites with 1 wt% silver nanoparticles, is reported in this work. In order to obtain well-dispersed nanoparticles in the block copolymer matrix, dodecanethiol was used as surfactant, showing good affinity with both nanoparticles and the polystyrene phase of the matrices as predicted by the solubility parameters calculated based on Hoftyzer and Van Krevelen theory. The block copolymer with the highest PS content shows the highest tensile modulus and tensile strength, but also the smallest elongation at break. When silver nanoparticles treated with surfactant were added to the block copolymer matrices, each system studied shows higher mechanical properties due to the good dispersion and the good interface of Ag nanoparticles in the matrices. Furthermore, it has been shown that semiempirical models such as Guth and Gold equation and Halpin-Tsai model can be used to predict the tensile modulus of the analyzed nanocomposites.

Availability of software services for a hospital information system.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakamoto, N

1998-03-01

Hospital information systems (HISs) are becoming more important and covering more parts in daily hospital operations as order-entry systems become popular and electronic charts are introduced. Thus, HISs today need to be able to provide necessary services for hospital operations for a 24-h day, 365 days a year. The provision of services discussed here does not simply mean the availability of computers, in which all that matters is that the computer is functioning. It means the provision of necessary information for hospital operations by the computer software, and we will call it the availability of software services. HISs these days are mostly client-server systems. To increase availability of software services in these systems, it is not enough to just use system structures that are highly reliable in existing host-centred systems. Four main components which support availability of software services are network systems, client computers, server computers, and application software. In this paper, we suggest how to structure these four components to provide the minimum requested software services even if a part of the system stops to function. The network system should be double-protected in stratus using Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) as its base network. Client computers should be fat clients with as much application logic as possible, and reference information which do not require frequent updates (master files, for example) should be replicated in clients. It would be best if all server computers could be double-protected. However, if that is physically impossible, one database file should be made accessible by several server computers. Still, at least the basic patients' information and the latest clinical records should be double-protected physically. Application software should be tested carefully before introduction. Different versions of the application software should always be kept and managed in case the new version has problems. If a hospital

Engaging autistic children in imitation and turn-taking games with multiagent system of interactive lighting blocks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brok, J.C.J.; Barakova, E.I.; Yang, H.S.; et al., xx

2010-01-01

In this paper game scenarios that aim to establish elements of cooperative play such as imitation and turn taking between children with autism and a caregiver are investigated. Multiagent system of interactive blocks is used to facilitate the games. The training elements include verbal description

System-level change in mental health services in North Wales: An observational study using systems thinking.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, S; Huxley, P J; Maxwell, N; Huxley, K L S

2014-06-01

To describe changes to mental health services using systems thinking. Structured standardized quality of life assessment (Manchester Short Quality of Life Assessment: MANSA) was used to establish service user priorities for changes to service provision (part of a process known as check in systems thinking). Current service performance in these priority areas was identified, and changes to service arrangements were planned, implemented and monitored by task and finish (T&F) groups (making use of a process known as flow in systems thinking). 81 MANSA assessments were completed at the check stage (by NM). Work finances and leisure activities emerged as service user priority areas for change, and T&F groups were established with representation of all sectors and service users. Ways to make improvements were observed, planned and implemented by T&F groups (the flow stage). The systems approach reveals how services and quality of life have been changed for patients in Wrexham. Further generalizable research is needed into the potential benefits of using systems thinking in mental health service evaluation. © The Author(s) 2013.

EFFICIENCY OF REDUNDANT QUERY EXECUTION IN MULTI-CHANNEL SERVICE SYSTEMS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. A. Bogatyrev

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Subject of Research.The paper deals with analysis of the effectiveness of redundant queries based on untrusted computing in computer systems, represented by multi-channel queuing systems with a common queue. The objective of research is the possibility of increasing the efficiency of service requests while performing redundant copies of requests in different devices of a multi-channel system under conditions of calculations unreliability. The redundant service of requests requires the infallibility of its implementation at least in one of the devices.Method. We have considered estimation of the average time spent in the system with and without the use of redundant requests at the presentation of a simple queuing model of the M / M / n type to analyze the effectiveness of redundant service of requests. Presented evaluation of the average waiting time in the redundant queries is the upper one, since it ignores the possibility of reducing the average waiting time as a result of the spread of the probability of time querying at different devices. The integrated efficiency of redundant service of requests is defined based on the multiplicative index that takes into account the infallibility of calculations and the average time allowance with respect to the maximum tolerated delay of service. Evaluation of error-free computing at reserved queries is received at the requirement of faultless execution of at least one copy of the request. Main Results. We have shown that the reservation of requests gives the gain in efficiency of the system at low demand rate (load. We have defined the boundaries of expediency (efficiency for redundant service of requests. We have shown the possibility of the effectiveness increasing of the adaptive changes in the multiplicity of the reservation of requests, depending on the intensity of the flow of requests. We have found out that the choice of service discipline in information service systems is largely determined by

Poly(ferrocenylsilane)-block-Polylactide Block Copolymers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roerdink, M.; van Zanten, Thomas S.; Hempenius, Mark A.; Zhong, Zhiyuan; Feijen, Jan; Vancso, Gyula J.

2007-01-01

A PFS/PLA block copolymer was studied to probe the effect of strong surface interactions on pattern formation in PFS block copolymer thin films. Successful synthesis of PFS-b-PLA was demonstrated. Thin films of these polymers show phase separation to form PFS microdomains in a PLA matrix, and

Smart Location Database - Service

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — The Smart Location Database (SLD) summarizes over 80 demographic, built environment, transit service, and destination accessibility attributes for every census block...

Developing collective customer knowledge and service climate: The interaction between service-oriented high-performance work systems and service leadership.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Kaifeng; Chuang, Chih-Hsun; Chiao, Yu-Ching

2015-07-01

This study theorized and examined the influence of the interaction between Service-Oriented high-performance work systems (HPWSs) and service leadership on collective customer knowledge and service climate. Using a sample of 569 employees and 142 managers in footwear retail stores, we found that Service-Oriented HPWSs and service leadership reduced the influences of one another on collective customer knowledge and service climate, such that the positive influence of service leadership on collective customer knowledge and service climate was stronger when Service-Oriented HPWSs were lower than when they were higher or the positive influence of Service-Oriented HPWSs on collective customer knowledge and service climate was stronger when service leadership was lower than when it was higher. We further proposed and found that collective customer knowledge and service climate were positively related to objective financial outcomes through service performance. Implications for the literature and managerial practices are discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

A Client-Server System for Ubiquitous Video Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ronit Nossenson

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In this work we introduce a simple client-server system architecture and algorithms for ubiquitous live video and VOD service support. The main features of the system are: efficient usage of network resources, emphasis on user personalization, and ease of implementation. The system supports many continuous service requirements such as QoS provision, user mobility between networks and between different communication devices, and simultaneous usage of a device by a number of users.

A standard graphite block

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ivkovic, M; Zdravkovic, Z; Sotic, O [Department of Reactor Physics and Dynamics, Boris Kidric Institute of nuclear sciences Vinca, Belgrade (Yugoslavia)

1966-04-15

A graphite block was calibrated for the thermal neutron flux of the Ra-Be source using indium foils as detectors. Experimental values of the thermal neutron flux along the central vertical axis of the system were corrected for the self-shielding effect and depression of flux in the detector. The experimental values obtained were compared with the values calculated on the basis of solving the conservation neutron equation by the continuous slowing-down theory. In this theoretical calculation of the flux the Ra-Be source was divided into three resonance energy regions. The measurement of the thermal neutron diffusion length in the standard graphite block is described. The measurements were performed in the thermal neutron region of the system. The experimental results were interpreted by the diffusion theory for point thermal neutron source in the finite system. The thermal neutron diffusion length was calculated to be L= 50.9 {+-}3.1 cm for the following graphite characteristics: density = 1.7 g/cm{sup 3}; boron content = 0.1 ppm; absorption cross section = 3.7 mb.

A standard graphite block

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ivkovic, M.; Zdravkovic, Z.; Sotic, O.

1966-04-01

A graphite block was calibrated for the thermal neutron flux of the Ra-Be source using indium foils as detectors. Experimental values of the thermal neutron flux along the central vertical axis of the system were corrected for the self-shielding effect and depression of flux in the detector. The experimental values obtained were compared with the values calculated on the basis of solving the conservation neutron equation by the continuous slowing-down theory. In this theoretical calculation of the flux the Ra-Be source was divided into three resonance energy regions. The measurement of the thermal neutron diffusion length in the standard graphite block is described. The measurements were performed in the thermal neutron region of the system. The experimental results were interpreted by the diffusion theory for point thermal neutron source in the finite system. The thermal neutron diffusion length was calculated to be L= 50.9 ±3.1 cm for the following graphite characteristics: density = 1.7 g/cm 3 ; boron content = 0.1 ppm; absorption cross section = 3.7 mb

Solid Propulsion Systems, Subsystems, and Components Service Life Extension

Science.gov (United States)

Hundley, Nedra H.; Jones, Connor

2011-01-01

The service life extension of solid propulsion systems, subsystems, and components will be discussed based on the service life extension of the Space Transportation System Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) and Booster Separation Motors (BSM). The RSRM is certified for an age life of five years. In the aftermath of the Columbia accident there were a number of motors that were approaching the end of their five year service life certification. The RSRM Project initiated an assessment to determine if the service life of these motors could be extended. With the advent of the Constellation Program, a flight test was proposed that would utilize one of the RSRMs which had been returned from the launch site due to the expiration of its five year service life certification and twelve surplus Chemical Systems Division BSMs which had exceeded their eight year service life. The RSRM age life tracking philosophy which establishes when the clock starts for age life tracking will be described. The role of the following activities in service life extension will be discussed: subscale testing, accelerated aging, dissecting full scale aged hardware, static testing full scale aged motors, data mining industry data, and using the fleet leader approach. The service life certification and extension of the BSMs will also be presented.

Ecosystem Services are Social-ecological Services in a Traditional Pastoral System: the Case of California's Mediterranean Rangelands

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lynn Huntsinger

2014-03-01

Full Text Available When attempting to value ecosystem services and support their production, two critical aspects may be neglected. The term "ecosystem services" implies that they are a function of natural processes; yet, human interaction with the environment may be key to the production of many. This can contribute to a misconception that ecosystem service production depends on, or is enhanced by, the coercion or removal of human industry. Second, in programs designed to encourage ecosystem service production and maintenance, too often the inter-relationship of such services with social and ecological processes and drivers at multiple scales is ignored. Thinking of such services as "social-ecological services" can reinforce the importance of human culture, perspectives, and economies to the production of ecosystem services. Using a social-ecological systems perspective, we explore the integral role of human activity and decisions at pasture, ranch, and landscape scales. Just as it does for understanding ecosystems, a hierarchical, multiscaled framework facilitates exploring the complexity of social-ecological systems as producers of ecosystem services, to develop approaches for the conservation of such services. Using California's Mediterranean rangelands as a study area, we suggest that using a multiscaled approach that considers the importance of the differing drivers and processes at each scale and the interactions among scales, and that incorporates social-ecological systems concepts, may help avoid mistakes caused by narrow assumptions about "natural" systems, and a lack of understanding of the need for integrated, multiscaled conservation programs.

The research of the availability at cloud service systems

Science.gov (United States)

Demydov, Ivan; Klymash, Mykhailo; Kharkhalis, Zenoviy; Strykhaliuk, Bohdan; Komada, Paweł; Shedreyeva, Indira; Targeusizova, Aliya; Iskakova, Aigul

2017-08-01

This paper is devoted to the numerical investigation of the availability at cloud service systems. In this paper criteria and constraints calculations were performed and obtained results were analyzed for synthesis purposes of distributed service platforms based on the cloud service-oriented architecture such as availability and system performance index variations by defined set of the main parameters. The method of synthesis has been numerically generalized considering the type of service workload in statistical form by Hurst parameter application for each integrated service that requires implementation within the service delivery platform, which is synthesized by structural matching of virtual machines using combination of elementary servicing components up to functionality into a best-of-breed solution. As a result of restrictions from Amdahl's Law the necessity of cloud-networks clustering was shown, which makes it possible to break the complex dynamic network into separate segments that simplifies access to the resources of virtual machines and, in general, to the "clouds" and respectively simplifies complex topological structure, enhancing the overall system performance. In overall, proposed approaches and obtained results numerically justifying and algorithmically describing the process of structural and functional synthesis of efficient distributed service platforms, which under process of their configuring and exploitation provides an opportunity to act on the dynamic environment in terms of comprehensive services range and nomadic users' workload pulsing.

Multiple Learning Strategies Project. Small Engine Repair Service. Regular Vocational. [Vol. 1.

Science.gov (United States)

Pitts, Jim; And Others

This instructional package is one of two designed for use by regular vocational students in the vocational area of small engine repair service. Contained in this document are forty-four learning modules organized into ten units: engine block; air cleaner; starters; fuel tanks; lines, filters, and pumps; carburetors; electrical; magneto systems;…

The service of strategic consultancy in information systems management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zunilka Limonta Favier

2013-07-01

Full Text Available We present a service that enables the design, management, innovation and implementation of information systems in academic, service, economic etc. which is intended as advice to entities that require attending to their needs whether external or internal. They offer some recommendations to improve the work in information systems and management. This paper shows how to provide differentiated services according to the characteristics of each institution.

On the Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of Block Triangular Preconditioned Block Matrices

KAUST Repository

Pestana, Jennifer

2014-01-01

Block lower triangular matrices and block upper triangular matrices are popular preconditioners for 2×2 block matrices. In this note we show that a block lower triangular preconditioner gives the same spectrum as a block upper triangular preconditioner and that the eigenvectors of the two preconditioned matrices are related. © 2014 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Development of Pre-Service and In-Service Information Management System (iSIMS)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoo, H. J.; Choi, S. N.; Kim, H. N.; Kim, Y. H.; Yang, S. H.

2004-01-01

The iSTMS is a web-based integrated information system supporting Pre-Service and In-Service Inspection(PSI/ISI) processes for the nuclear power plants of KHNP(Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. Ltd.). The system provides a full spectrum coverage of the inspection processes from the planning stage to the final report of examination in accordance with applicable codes, standards, and regulatory requirements. The major functions of the system includes the inspection planning, examination, reporting, project control and status reporting, resource management as well as objects search and navigation. The system also provides two dimensional or three dimensional visualization interface to identify the location and geometry of components and weld areas subject to examination in collaboration with database applications. The iSIMS is implemented with commercial software packages such as database management system, 2-D and 3-D visualization tool, etc., which provide open, updated and verified foundations. This paper describes the key functions and the technologies for the implementation of the iSIMS

Development of Pre-Service and In-Service Information Management System (iSIMS)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yoo, H. J.; Choi, S. N.; Kim, H. N.; Kim, Y. H.; Yang, S. H. [Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2004-08-15

The iSTMS is a web-based integrated information system supporting Pre-Service and In-Service Inspection(PSI/ISI) processes for the nuclear power plants of KHNP(Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. Ltd.). The system provides a full spectrum coverage of the inspection processes from the planning stage to the final report of examination in accordance with applicable codes, standards, and regulatory requirements. The major functions of the system includes the inspection planning, examination, reporting, project control and status reporting, resource management as well as objects search and navigation. The system also provides two dimensional or three dimensional visualization interface to identify the location and geometry of components and weld areas subject to examination in collaboration with database applications. The iSIMS is implemented with commercial software packages such as database management system, 2-D and 3-D visualization tool, etc., which provide open, updated and verified foundations. This paper describes the key functions and the technologies for the implementation of the iSIMS

Powder wastes confinement block and manufacturing process of this block

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dagot, L.; Brunel, G.

1996-01-01

This invention concerns a powder wastes containment block and a manufacturing process of this block. In this block, the waste powder is encapsulated in a thermo hardening polymer as for example an epoxy resin, the encapsulated resin being spread into cement. This block can contain between 45 and 55% in mass of wastes, between 18 and 36% in mass of polymer and between 14 and 32% in mass of cement. Such a containment block can be used for the radioactive wastes storage. (O.M.). 4 refs

Home Environment Service Knowledge Management System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Jiang; Rossello Busquet, Ana; Soler, José

2011-01-01

This paper makes three contributions to assist households to control their home devices in an easy way and to simplify the software installation and configuration processes across multi-vendor environments. First, a Home Environment Service Knowledge Management System is proposed, which is based...... on the knowledge implemented by ontology and uses the inference function of reasoner to find out available software services according to household requests. Second, this paper provides a concrete methodology to exploit and acquire conflict-free information from ontology knowledge by using a reasoner. At last......, a strategy of calculating the sequence of service dependency hierarchy is proposed by this paper....

Blocked Randomization with Randomly Selected Block Sizes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jimmy Efird

2010-12-01

Full Text Available When planning a randomized clinical trial, careful consideration must be given to how participants are selected for various arms of a study. Selection and accidental bias may occur when participants are not assigned to study groups with equal probability. A simple random allocation scheme is a process by which each participant has equal likelihood of being assigned to treatment versus referent groups. However, by chance an unequal number of individuals may be assigned to each arm of the study and thus decrease the power to detect statistically significant differences between groups. Block randomization is a commonly used technique in clinical trial design to reduce bias and achieve balance in the allocation of participants to treatment arms, especially when the sample size is small. This method increases the probability that each arm will contain an equal number of individuals by sequencing participant assignments by block. Yet still, the allocation process may be predictable, for example, when the investigator is not blind and the block size is fixed. This paper provides an overview of blocked randomization and illustrates how to avoid selection bias by using random block sizes.

Population Blocks.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Martin H.

1992-01-01

Describes an educational game called "Population Blocks" that is designed to illustrate the concept of exponential growth of the human population and some potential effects of overpopulation. The game material consists of wooden blocks; 18 blocks are painted green (representing land), 7 are painted blue (representing water); and the remaining…

Climate Model Diagnostic Analyzer Web Service System

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, S.; Pan, L.; Zhai, C.; Tang, B.; Kubar, T. L.; Li, J.; Zhang, J.; Wang, W.

2015-12-01

Both the National Research Council Decadal Survey and the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report stressed the need for the comprehensive and innovative evaluation of climate models with the synergistic use of global satellite observations in order to improve our weather and climate simulation and prediction capabilities. The abundance of satellite observations for fundamental climate parameters and the availability of coordinated model outputs from CMIP5 for the same parameters offer a great opportunity to understand and diagnose model biases in climate models. In addition, the Obs4MIPs efforts have created several key global observational datasets that are readily usable for model evaluations. However, a model diagnostic evaluation process requires physics-based multi-variable comparisons that typically involve large-volume and heterogeneous datasets, making them both computationally- and data-intensive. In response, we have developed a novel methodology to diagnose model biases in contemporary climate models and implementing the methodology as a web-service based, cloud-enabled, provenance-supported climate-model evaluation system. The evaluation system is named Climate Model Diagnostic Analyzer (CMDA), which is the product of the research and technology development investments of several current and past NASA ROSES programs. The current technologies and infrastructure of CMDA are designed and selected to address several technical challenges that the Earth science modeling and model analysis community faces in evaluating and diagnosing climate models. In particular, we have three key technology components: (1) diagnostic analysis methodology; (2) web-service based, cloud-enabled technology; (3) provenance-supported technology. The diagnostic analysis methodology includes random forest feature importance ranking, conditional probability distribution function, conditional sampling, and time-lagged correlation map. We have implemented the

Amphiphilic block copolymers for drug delivery.

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Monica L; Lavasanifar, Afsaneh; Kwon, Glen S

2003-07-01

Amphiphilic block copolymers (ABCs) have been used extensively in pharmaceutical applications ranging from sustained-release technologies to gene delivery. The utility of ABCs for delivery of therapeutic agents results from their unique chemical composition, which is characterized by a hydrophilic block that is chemically tethered to a hydrophobic block. In aqueous solution, polymeric micelles are formed via the association of ABCs into nanoscopic core/shell structures at or above the critical micelle concentration. Upon micellization, the hydrophobic core regions serve as reservoirs for hydrophobic drugs, which may be loaded by chemical, physical, or electrostatic means, depending on the specific functionalities of the core-forming block and the solubilizate. Although the Pluronics, composed of poly(ethylene oxide)-block-poly(propylene oxide)-block-poly(ethylene oxide), are the most widely studied ABC system, copolymers containing poly(L-amino acid) and poly(ester) hydrophobic blocks have also shown great promise in delivery applications. Because each ABC has unique advantages with respect to drug delivery, it may be possible to choose appropriate block copolymers for specific purposes, such as prolonging circulation time, introduction of targeting moieties, and modification of the drug-release profile. ABCs have been used for numerous pharmaceutical applications including drug solubilization/stabilization, alteration of the pharmacokinetic profile of encapsulated substances, and suppression of multidrug resistance. The purpose of this minireview is to provide a concise, yet detailed, introduction to the use of ABCs and polymeric micelles as delivery agents as well as to highlight current and past work in this area. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association

42 CFR 412.20 - Hospital services subject to the prospective payment systems.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... payment systems. 412.20 Section 412.20 Public Health CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MEDICARE PROGRAM PROSPECTIVE PAYMENT SYSTEMS FOR INPATIENT HOSPITAL SERVICES Hospital Services Subject to and Excluded From the Prospective Payment Systems for Inpatient...

Block-Iterative Frequency-Domain Equalizations for SC-IDMA Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salah Awad Salman

2015-07-01

Full Text Available In wireless broadband communications using single-carrier interleave division multiple access (SC-IDMA systems, efficient multiuser detection (MUD classes that make use of joint hybrid decision feedback equalization (HDFE/ frequency decision-feedback equalization (FDFE and interference cancellation (IC techniques, are proposed in conjunction with channel coding to deal with several users accessing the multipath fading channels. In FDFE-IDMA, the feedforward (FF and feedback (FB filtering operations of FDFE, which use to remove intersymbol interference (ISI, are implemented by Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs, while in HDFE-IDMA the only FF filter is implemented by FFTs. Further, the parameters involved in the FDFE/HDFE filtering are derived according to the minimum mean square error (MMSE criteria, and the feedback symbol decisions are directly designed from soft detection of the decoded signals at the previous iteration. The simulation results including comparisons with those of frequency domain equalization (FDE, SC-FDE-IDMA and multi-carrier OFDM-IDMA schemes, with cyclic prefixing (CP and zero padding (ZP techniques, show that the combination of FDFE-IC/HDFE-IC provides an efficient solution with good performance for IDMA systems in ISI channels. Moreover, these iterative structures with block equalization yield a much lower complexity than equivalent existing structures, making them attractive for a wealth of applications.

Trust Management System for Opportunistic Cloud Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kuada, Eric

2013-01-01

We have over the past three years been working on the feasibility of Opportunistic Cloud Services (OCS) for enterprises. OCS is about enterprises strategically contributing and utilizing spare IT resources as cloud services. One of the major challenges that such a platform faces is data security...... and trust management issues. This paper presents a trust management system for OCS platforms. It models the concept of trust and applies it to OCS platforms. The trust model and the trust management system are verified through the simulation of the computation of the trust values with Infrastructure...

Possibilities of a Personal Laser Scanning System for Forest Mapping and Ecosystem Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xinlian Liang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available A professional-quality, personal laser scanning (PLS system for collecting tree attributes was demonstrated in this paper. The applied system, which is wearable by human operators, consists of a multi-constellation navigation system and an ultra-high-speed phase-shift laser scanner mounted on a rigid baseplate and consisting of a single sensor block. A multipass-corridor-mapping method was developed to process PLS data and a 2,000 m2 forest plot was utilized in the test. The tree stem detection accuracy was 82.6%; the root mean square error (RMSE of the estimates of tree diameter at breast height (DBH was 5.06 cm; the RMSE of the estimates of tree location was 0.38 m. The relative RMSE of the DBH estimates was 14.63%. The results showed, for the first time, the potential of the PLS system in mapping large forest plots. Further research on mapping accuracy in various forest conditions, data correction methods and multi-sensoral positioning techniques is needed. The utilization of this system in different applications, such as harvester operations, should also be explored. In addition to collecting tree-level and plot-level data for forest inventory, other possible applications of PLS for forest ecosystem services include mapping of canopy gaps, measuring leaf area index of large areas, documenting and visualizing forest routes feasible for recreation, hiking and berry and mushroom picking.

On Outage Performance of Spectrum-Sharing Communication over M-Block Fading

KAUST Repository

Alabbasi, AbdulRahman; Rezki, Zouheir; Shihada, Basem

2015-01-01

In this paper, we consider a cognitive radio system in which a block-fading channel is assumed. Each transmission frame consists of M blocks and each block undergoes a different channel gain. Instantaneous channel state information about

Service-Oriented Architecture Approach to MAGTF Logistics Support Systems

Science.gov (United States)

2013-09-01

Support System-Marine Corps IT Information Technology KPI Key Performance Indicators LCE Logistics Command Element ITV In-transit Visibility LCM...building blocks, options, KPI (key performance indicators), design decisions and the corresponding; the physical attributes which is the second attribute... KPI ) that they impact. h. Layer 8 (Information Architecture) The business intelligence layer and information architecture safeguards the inclusion

Application of Transaction Cost Economics to Capabilities-Based Acquisition: Exploring Single Service vs. Joint Service Programs and Single Systems vs. System-of-Systems

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Angelis, Diana; Dillard, John; Franck, Raymond; Melese, Francois; Brown, Mary M; Flowe, Robert M

2008-01-01

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is in the process of radical transformation -- transformation to a national security strategy predicated on joint Service purchases and complex System-of-Systems (SoS) capabilities...

A Trigonometrically Fitted Block Method for Solving Oscillatory Second-Order Initial Value Problems and Hamiltonian Systems

OpenAIRE

Ngwane, F. F.; Jator, S. N.

2017-01-01

In this paper, we present a block hybrid trigonometrically fitted Runge-Kutta-Nyström method (BHTRKNM), whose coefficients are functions of the frequency and the step-size for directly solving general second-order initial value problems (IVPs), including Hamiltonian systems such as the energy conserving equations and systems arising from the semidiscretization of partial differential equations (PDEs). Four discrete hybrid formulas used to formulate the BHTRKNM are provided by a continuous one...

Unavailability Analysis of the Reactor Core Protection System using Reliability Block Diagram

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shin, Hyun Kook; Kim, Sung Ho; Choi, Woong Suk; Kim, Jae Hack

2006-01-01

The reactor core of nuclear power plants needs to be monitored for the early detection of core abnormal conditions to protect plants from a severe accident. The core protection calculator system (CPCS) has been provided to calculate the departure from nucleate boiling ratio (DNBR) and the local power density (LPD) based on measured parameters of reactor and coolant system. The original CPCS for OPR 1000 has been designed and implemented based on the concurrent 3205 computer system whose components are obsolete. The CPCS based on Westinghouse Common-Q system has recently been implemented for the Shin-Kori Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2(SKN 1 and 2). An R and D project has been launched to develop new core protection system called as RCOPS (Reactor Core Protection System) with the partnership of KOPEC and Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co. RCOPS is implemented on the HFC-6000 safety class programmable logic controller (PLC). In this paper, the reliability of RCOPS is analyzed using the reliability block diagram (RBD) method. The calculated results are compared with that of the CPCS for SKN 1 and 2

Logistics hardware and services control system

Science.gov (United States)

Koromilas, A.; Miller, K.; Lamb, T.

1973-01-01

Software system permits onsite direct control of logistics operations, which include spare parts, initial installation, tool control, and repairable parts status and control, through all facets of operations. System integrates logistics actions and controls receipts, issues, loans, repairs, fabrications, and modifications and assets in predicting and allocating logistics parts and services effectively.

Gateway National Weather Service (NWS) Service Records and Retention System (SRRS)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Service Records Retention System (SRRS) was developed to store weather observations, summaries, forecasts, warnings, and advisories provided by the U.S. National...

Design and realization of intelligent tourism service system based on voice interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Lei-di; Long, Yi; Qian, Cheng-yang; Zhang, Ling; Lv, Guo-nian

2008-10-01

Voice technology is one of the important contents to improve the intelligence and humanization of tourism service system. Combining voice technology, the paper concentrates on application needs and the composition of system to present an overall intelligent tourism service system's framework consisting of presentation layer, Web services layer, and tourism application service layer. On the basis, the paper further elaborated the implementation of the system and its key technologies, including intelligent voice interactive technology, seamless integration technology of multiple data sources, location-perception-based guides' services technology, and tourism safety control technology. Finally, according to the situation of Nanjing tourism, a prototype of Tourism Services System is realized.

Self-assembling block copolymer systems involving competing length scales : A route toward responsive materials

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nap, R; Erukhimovich, [No Value; ten Brinke, G; Erukhimovich, Igor

2004-01-01

The phase behavior of block copolymers melts involving competing length scales, i.e., able to microphase separate on two different length scales, is theoretically investigated using a self-consistent field approach. The specific block copolymers studied consist of a linear A-block linked to an

Customized products and cloud service information system development research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hung Chien-Wen

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study presents a cloud service customized product information system to enable businesses to provide customized product marketing on the Internet to meet consumer demand for customized products. The cloud service of the information system development strategic framework proposed in this study contains three elements: (1 e-commerce services, (2 promotion type modules, and (3 cloud services customized promotional products. In this study, a mining cloud information system to detect customer behavior is proposed. The association rules from relational database design are utilized to mine consumer behavior to generate cross-selling proposals for customer products and marketing for a retailing mall in Taiwan. The study is composed of several parts, as follows. A market segment and application of association rules in data exploration techniques (Association Rule Mining and sequence-like exploration (Sequential Pattern Mining, efficient analysis of customers, consumer behavior, identification of candidates for promotional products, and using cloud service delivery and evaluation of targets to evaluate candidates for promotional products for production. However, in addition to cloud service customized promotional products, the quantity of promotional products sales varies for different customers. We strive to achieve increased customer loyalty and profits through the use of active cloud service customized promotional products.

Flexural resistance of Cerec CAD/CAM system ceramic blocks. Part 2: Outsourcing materials.

Science.gov (United States)

Sedda, Maurizio; Vichi, Alessandro; Del Siena, Francesco; Louca, Chris; Ferrari, Marco

2014-02-01

To test different Cerec CAD/CAM system ceramic blocks, comparing mean flexural strength (sigma), Weibull modulus (m), and Weibull characteristic strength (sigma0) in an ISO standardized set-up. Following the recent ISO Standard (ISO 6872:2008), 11 types of ceramic blocks were tested: IPS e.max CAD MO, IPS e.max CAD LT and IPS e.max CAD HT (lithium disilicate glass-ceramic); In-Ceram SPINELL, In-Ceram Alumina and In-Ceram Zirconia (glass-infiltrated materials); inCoris AL and In-Ceram AL (densely sintered alumina); In-Ceram YZ, IPS e.max Zir-CAD and inCoris ZI (densely sintered zirconia). Specimens were cut out from ceramic blocks, finished, crystallized/infiltrated/sintered, polished, and tested in a three-point bending test apparatus. Flexural strength, Weibull characteristic strength, and Weibull modulus were obtained. A statistically significant difference was found (P ceramic (sigma = 272.6 +/- 376.8 MPa, m = 6.2 +/- 11.3, sigma0 = 294.0 +/- 394.1 MPa) and densely sintered alumina (sigma = 441.8 +/- 541.6 MPa, m = 11.9 +/- 19.0, sigma0 = 454.2 +/- 565.2 MPa). No statistically significant difference was found (P = 0.254) in glass infiltrated materials (sigma = 376.9 +/- 405.5 MPa, m = 7.5 +/- 11.5, sigma0 = 393.7 +/- 427.0 MPa). No statistically significant difference was found (P = 0.160) in densely sintered zirconia (sigma = 1,060.8 +/- 1,227.8 MPa, m = 5.8 +/- 7.4, sigma0 = 1,002.4 +/- 1,171.0 MPa). Not all the materials tested fulfilled the requirements for the clinical indications recommended by the manufacturer.

5th CIRP international conference on industrial product-service systems

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

“An Industrial Product-Service System is characterized by the integrated and mutually  determined planning, development, provision and use of product and service shares including its immanent software components in Business-to-Business applications and represents a knowledge-intensive socio-technical system.” – Meier, Roy, Seliger (2010) Since the first conference in 2009, the CIRP International Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems has become a well-established international forum for the review and discussion of advances, research results and industrial improvements. Researchers from all over the world have met at previous IPS² conferences in Cranfield (2009), Linköping (2010), Braunschweig (2011) and Tokyo (2012). In 2013, the 5th CIRP International Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems is held in Bochum. Important topics of IPS² research presented at the conference are: planning and development, sustainability, business models, operation, service engineering, knowledge mana...

Ecosystem Services from Edible Insects in Agricultural Systems: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charlotte L. R. Payne

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Many of the most nutritionally and economically important edible insects are those that are harvested from existing agricultural systems. Current strategies of agricultural intensification focus predominantly on increasing crop yields, with no or little consideration of the repercussions this may have for the additional harvest and ecology of accompanying food insects. Yet such insects provide many valuable ecosystem services, and their sustainable management could be crucial to ensuring future food security. This review considers the multiple ecosystem services provided by edible insects in existing agricultural systems worldwide. Directly and indirectly, edible insects contribute to all four categories of ecosystem services as outlined by the Millennium Ecosystem Services definition: provisioning, regulating, maintaining, and cultural services. They are also responsible for ecosystem disservices, most notably significant crop damage. We argue that it is crucial for decision-makers to evaluate the costs and benefits of the presence of food insects in agricultural systems. We recommend that a key priority for further research is the quantification of the economic and environmental contribution of services and disservices from edible insects in agricultural systems.

Ecosystem Services from Edible Insects in Agricultural Systems: A Review

Science.gov (United States)

Payne, Charlotte L. R.; Van Itterbeeck, Joost

2017-01-01

Many of the most nutritionally and economically important edible insects are those that are harvested from existing agricultural systems. Current strategies of agricultural intensification focus predominantly on increasing crop yields, with no or little consideration of the repercussions this may have for the additional harvest and ecology of accompanying food insects. Yet such insects provide many valuable ecosystem services, and their sustainable management could be crucial to ensuring future food security. This review considers the multiple ecosystem services provided by edible insects in existing agricultural systems worldwide. Directly and indirectly, edible insects contribute to all four categories of ecosystem services as outlined by the Millennium Ecosystem Services definition: provisioning, regulating, maintaining, and cultural services. They are also responsible for ecosystem disservices, most notably significant crop damage. We argue that it is crucial for decision-makers to evaluate the costs and benefits of the presence of food insects in agricultural systems. We recommend that a key priority for further research is the quantification of the economic and environmental contribution of services and disservices from edible insects in agricultural systems. PMID:28218635

Ecosystem Services from Edible Insects in Agricultural Systems: A Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Payne, Charlotte L R; Van Itterbeeck, Joost

2017-02-17

Many of the most nutritionally and economically important edible insects are those that are harvested from existing agricultural systems. Current strategies of agricultural intensification focus predominantly on increasing crop yields, with no or little consideration of the repercussions this may have for the additional harvest and ecology of accompanying food insects. Yet such insects provide many valuable ecosystem services, and their sustainable management could be crucial to ensuring future food security. This review considers the multiple ecosystem services provided by edible insects in existing agricultural systems worldwide. Directly and indirectly, edible insects contribute to all four categories of ecosystem services as outlined by the Millennium Ecosystem Services definition: provisioning, regulating, maintaining, and cultural services. They are also responsible for ecosystem disservices, most notably significant crop damage. We argue that it is crucial for decision-makers to evaluate the costs and benefits of the presence of food insects in agricultural systems. We recommend that a key priority for further research is the quantification of the economic and environmental contribution of services and disservices from edible insects in agricultural systems.

Biofouling of power-plant service systems by Corbicula

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Page, T.L.; Neitzel, D.A.; Simmons, M.A.; Hayes, P.F.

1983-08-01

Corbicula sp. foul the service water systems at nuclear power plants because the environment within these systems is compatible with the ecological requirements of the species. To reduce Corbicula fouling, components of service water systems and operating procedures that enhance the potential for fouling need to be identified. Factors important in mediating biofouling of service water systems appear to be screening potential, minimum and maximum velocities and the operational procedures employed during power plant biofoulant control and downtime. These conclusions are based on the results of a categorical model we used to correlate information from power plants with that on Corbicula life history. Power plant parameters in the model include temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, screen and strainer size, maximum and minimum velocities, and elements of the biofouling control procedures. Parameters for Corbicula include tolerances to temperature, dissolved oxygen, biofouling control chemicals, velocity preferences, and optimal temperatures for each life stage and behavior. 13 references, 5 figures

Towards Self-adaptation for Dependable Service-Oriented Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cardellini, Valeria; Casalicchio, Emiliano; Grassi, Vincenzo; Lo Presti, Francesco; Mirandola, Raffaela

Increasingly complex information systems operating in dynamic environments ask for management policies able to deal intelligently and autonomously with problems and tasks. An attempt to deal with these aspects can be found in the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm that foresees the creation of business applications from independently developed services, where services and applications build up complex dependencies. Therefore the dependability of SOA systems strongly depends on their ability to self-manage and adapt themselves to cope with changes in the operating conditions and to meet the required dependability with a minimum of resources. In this paper we propose a model-based approach to the realization of self-adaptable SOA systems, aimed at the fulfillment of dependability requirements. Specifically, we provide a methodology driving the system adaptation and we discuss the architectural issues related to its implementation. To bring this approach to fruition, we developed a prototype tool and we show the results that can be achieved with a simple example.

Designing Integrated Product- Service System Solutions in Manufacturing Industries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Costa, Nina; Patrício, Lia; Morelli, Nicola

2015-01-01

Manufacturing firms are increasingly evolving towards the design of integrated product-service solutions but servitization literature does not provide specific guidance on how to design these integrated solutions. Building upon ProductService System (PSS) and Service Design (SD) approaches...... how it brings new insights to manufacturing companies moving to a service, value cocreation perspective....

Evaluated phase diagrams of binary metal-tellurium systems of the D-block transition elements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chattopadhyay, G.; Bharadwaj, S.R.

1989-01-01

The binary phase diagrams of metal-tellurium systems for twenty seven d-block transition elements have been critically evaluated. Complete phase diagrams are presented for the elements, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, molybdenum, palladium, silver, lanthanum, platinum and gold, whereas, for scandium, titanium, vanadium, yttrium, zirconium, niobium, technitium, ruthenium, rhodium, hafnium, tantalum, tungsten , rhenium, osmium and iridium, the phase diagrams are incomplete and tentative. (author). 20 refs., 27 tabs., 27 figs

Polymorphic Ring-Shaped Molecular Clusters Made of Shape-Variable Building Blocks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keitel Cervantes-Salguero

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Self-assembling molecular building blocks able to dynamically change their shapes, is a concept that would offer a route to reconfigurable systems. Although simulation studies predict novel properties useful for applications in diverse fields, such kinds of building blocks, have not been implemented thus far with molecules. Here, we report shape-variable building blocks fabricated by DNA self-assembly. Blocks are movable enough to undergo shape transitions along geometrical ranges. Blocks connect to each other and assemble into polymorphic ring-shaped clusters via the stacking of DNA blunt-ends. Reconfiguration of the polymorphic clusters is achieved by the surface diffusion on mica substrate in response to a monovalent salt concentration. This work could inspire novel reconfigurable self-assembling systems for applications in molecular robotics.

Comparison of automated and manual shielding block fabrication

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weeks, K.J.; Fraass, B.A.; McShan, D.L.; Hardybala, S.S.; Hargreaves, E.A.; Lichter, A.S.

1989-01-01

This work reports the results of a study comparing computer controlled and manual shielding block cutting. The general problems inherent in automated block cutting have been identified and minimized. A system whose accuracy is sufficient for clinical applications has been developed. The relative accuracy of our automated system versus experienced technician controlled cutting was investigated. In general, it is found that automated cutting is somewhat faster and more accurate than manual cutting for very large fields, but that the reverse is true for most smaller fields. The relative cost effectiveness of automated cutting is dependent on the percentage of computer designed blocks which are generated in the clinical setting. At the present time, the traditional manual method is still favored

Real-time validation of receiver state information in optical space-time block code systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Alamia, John; Kurzweg, Timothy

2014-06-15

Free space optical interconnect (FSOI) systems are a promising solution to interconnect bottlenecks in high-speed systems. To overcome some sources of diminished FSOI performance caused by close proximity of multiple optical channels, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems implementing encoding schemes such as space-time block coding (STBC) have been developed. These schemes utilize information pertaining to the optical channel to reconstruct transmitted data. The STBC system is dependent on accurate channel state information (CSI) for optimal system performance. As a result of dynamic changes in optical channels, a system in operation will need to have updated CSI. Therefore, validation of the CSI during operation is a necessary tool to ensure FSOI systems operate efficiently. In this Letter, we demonstrate a method of validating CSI, in real time, through the use of moving averages of the maximum likelihood decoder data, and its capacity to predict the bit error rate (BER) of the system.

Minimum description length block finder, a method to identify haplotype blocks and to compare the strength of block boundaries.

Science.gov (United States)

Mannila, H; Koivisto, M; Perola, M; Varilo, T; Hennah, W; Ekelund, J; Lukk, M; Peltonen, L; Ukkonen, E

2003-07-01

We describe a new probabilistic method for finding haplotype blocks that is based on the use of the minimum description length (MDL) principle. We give a rigorous definition of the quality of a segmentation of a genomic region into blocks and describe a dynamic programming algorithm for finding the optimal segmentation with respect to this measure. We also describe a method for finding the probability of a block boundary for each pair of adjacent markers: this gives a tool for evaluating the significance of each block boundary. We have applied the method to the published data of Daly and colleagues. The results expose some problems that exist in the current methods for the evaluation of the significance of predicted block boundaries. Our method, MDL block finder, can be used to compare block borders in different sample sets, and we demonstrate this by applying the MDL-based method to define the block structure in chromosomes from population isolates.

Continuum of Care Services for Maternal and Child Health using mobile technology - a health system strengthening strategy in low and middle income countries.

Science.gov (United States)

Balakrishnan, Ramkrishnan; Gopichandran, Vijayaprasad; Chaturvedi, Sharadprakash; Chatterjee, Rahul; Mahapatra, Tanmay; Chaudhuri, Indrajit

2016-07-07

Mobile phone technology is utilized for better delivery of health services worldwide. In low-and-middle income countries mobile phones are now ubiquitous. Thus leveraging mHealth applications in health sector is becoming popular rapidly in these countries. To assess the effectiveness of the Continuum of Care Services (CCS) mHealth platform in terms of strengthening the delivery of maternal and child health (MCH) services in a district in Bihar, a resource-poor state in India. The CommCare mHealth platform was customized to CCS as one of the innovations under a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve the maternal and newborn health services in Bihar. The intervention was rolled out in one project district in Bihar, during July 2012. More than 550 frontline workers out of a total of 3000 including Accredited Social Health Activists, Anganwadi Workers, Auxilliary Nurse Midwives and Lady Health Supervisors were trained to use the mHealth platform. The service delivery components namely early registration of pregnant women, three antenatal visits, tetanus toxoid immunization of the mother, iron and folic acid tablet supply, institutional delivery, postnatal home visits and early initiation of breastfeeding were used as indicators for good quality services. The resultant coverage of these services in the implementation area was compared with rest of Bihar and previous year statistics of the same area. The time lag between delivery of a service and its record capture in the maternal and child tracking system (MCTS) database was computed in a random sample of 16,000 beneficiaries. The coverage of services among marginalized and non-marginalized castes was compared to indicate equity of service delivery. Health system strengthening was viewed from the angle of coverage, quality, equity and efficiency of services. The implementation blocks had higher coverage of all the eight indicator services compared to rest of Bihar and the previous year. There

49 CFR 214.529 - In-service failure of primary braking system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false In-service failure of primary braking system. 214... Maintenance Machines and Hi-Rail Vehicles § 214.529 In-service failure of primary braking system. (a) In the event of a total in-service failure of its primary braking system, an on-track roadway maintenance...

A Validated Analytical Model for Availability Prediction of IPTV Services in VANETs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernd E. Wolfinger

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs, besides the original applications typically related to traffic safety, we nowadays can observe an increasing trend toward infotainment applications, such as IPTV services. Quality of experience (QoE, as observed by the end users of IPTV, is highly important to guarantee adequate user acceptance for the service. In IPTV, QoE is mainly determined by the availability of TV channels for the users. This paper presents an efficient and rather generally applicable analytical model that allows one to predict the blocking probability of TV channels, both for channel-switching-induced, as well as for handover-induced blocking events. We present the successful validation of the model by means of simulation, and we introduce a new measure for QoE. Numerous case studies illustrate how the analytical model and our new QoE measure can be applied successfully for the dimensioning of IPTV systems, taking into account the QoE requirements of the IPTV service users in strongly diverse traffic scenarios.

The tsunami service bus, an integration platform for heterogeneous sensor systems

Science.gov (United States)

Haener, R.; Waechter, J.; Kriegel, U.; Fleischer, J.; Mueller, S.

2009-04-01

1. INTRODUCTION Early warning systems are long living and evolving: New sensor-systems and -types may be developed and deployed, sensors will be replaced or redeployed on other locations and the functionality of analyzing software will be improved. To ensure a continuous operability of those systems their architecture must be evolution-enabled. From a computer science point of view an evolution-enabled architecture must fulfill following criteria: • Encapsulation of and functionality on data in standardized services. Access to proprietary sensor data is only possible via these services. • Loose coupling of system constituents which easily can be achieved by implementing standardized interfaces. • Location transparency of services what means that services can be provided everywhere. • Separation of concerns that means breaking a system into distinct features which overlap in functionality as little as possible. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as e. g. realized in the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) and the advantages of functional integration on the basis of services described below adopt these criteria best. 2. SENSOR INTEGRATION Integration of data from (distributed) data sources is just a standard task in computer science. From few well known solution patterns, taking into account performance and security requirements of early warning systems only functional integration should be considered. Precondition for this is that systems are realized compliant to SOA patterns. Functionality is realized in form of dedicated components communicating via a service infrastructure. These components provide their functionality in form of services via standardized and published interfaces which could be used to access data maintained in - and functionality provided by dedicated components. Functional integration replaces the tight coupling at data level by a dependency on loosely coupled services. If the interfaces of the service providing

Application of the System Approach to Financial Services Market Research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dubyna Maksym V

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the nature of the financial services market by using the system approach methodology. In particular, the attention is focused on the already existing conceptual approaches to defining the nature of this market, their basic aspects are analyzed. The use of the system approach allowed to identify the essence of the financial services market as a single, complex system, which is proposed to be considered as an aggregate number of consumers and providers of financial services operating within a single economic space, their relationships emerging to meet different in their nature demands for financial services, with their interrelation being associated with movement of financial resources within this space and partially accompanied by processes of transformation of temporary free funds of economic entities into credit and investment resources. In the article the system components and the relationships between them are determined, the elements of the environment are identified and their relationship with the market for financial services described.

Dynamic response analysis of block foundations with nonlinear dry friction mounting system to impact loads

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zheng, Enlai; Zhu, Sihong; Zhou, Xinlong

2014-01-01

It is essential to establish a dynamic model to predict and evaluate the dynamic performance of a nonlinear dry friction mounting system during design procedure, when it is impossible to carry out the test of prototype. Unlike the conventional ideal dry friction model where the direction of dry friction force is always considered to be opposite to that of relative velocity, a new equivalent resistance model of dry friction force is proposed based on the bilinear hysteretic model by introducing a parameter g in this work. The equivalent resistance contains spring force and damping force, whose direction is not opposite to that of relative velocity. Then, a dynamic model of the block foundation with nonlinear dry friction mounting system is established. When the equivalent resistance is applied to the dynamic model, its dynamic responses are obtained under common practical forms of press loads: rectangular pulse, half-sine pulse, and triangular pulse. Compared to experimental results, the dynamic responses based on the equivalent resistance model are more consistent with the simulation results based on the ideal dry friction model and the validity of the equivalent resistance model for the bilinear hysteretic model in this work is verified. Furthermore, the effect of the pulse shape and pulse duration on the dynamic responses of the block foundation with nonlinear dry friction mounting system is investigated.

Spring-block Model for Barkhausen Noise

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kovacs, K.; Brechet, Y.; Neda, Z.

2005-01-01

A simple mechanical spring-block model is used for studying Barkhausen noise (BN). The model incorporates the generally accepted physics of domain wall movement and pinning. Computer simulations on this model reproduces the main features of the hysteresis loop and Barkhausen jumps. The statistics of the obtained Barkhausen jumps follows several scaling laws, in qualitative agreement with experimental results. The model consists of a one-dimensional frictional spring-block system. The blocks model the Bloch-walls that separate inversely oriented magnetic domains, and springs correspond to the magnetized regions. Three types of realistic forces are modelled with this system: 1. the force resulting from the magnetic energy of the neighboring domains in external magnetic field (modelled by forces having alternating orientations and acting directly on the blocks); 2. the force resulting from the magnetic self-energy of each domain (modelled by the elastic forces of the springs); 3. the pinning forces acting on the domain walls (modelled by position dependent static friction acting on blocks). The dynamics of the system is governed by searching for equilibrium: one particular domain wall can jump to the next pinning center if the resultant of forces 1. and 2. is greater then the pinning force. The external magnetic field is successively increased (or decreased) and the system is relaxed to mechanical equilibrium. During the simulations we are monitoring the variation of the magnetization focusing on the shape of the hysteresis loop, power spectrum, jump size (avalanche size) distribution, signal duration distribution, signal area distribution. The simulated shape of the hysteresis loops fulfills all the requirements for real magnetization phenomena. The power spectrum indicates different behavior in the low (1/f noise) and high (white noise) frequency region. All the relevant distribution functions show scaling behavior over several decades of magnitude with a naturally

Service quality in low-voltage systems. General principles. [EDF, France

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Heisch, J. (Electricite de France, 75 - Paris)

1984-01-01

Voltage quality and service continuity are two components of service quality, as limited to the technical aspect of the concept. After reviewing the current situation, the actions undertaken to improve said situation are enumerated, actions essentially directed towards MV systems, taking into account system structures. With service quality still of an industrial character, certain users might be led to install additional equipment.

Clonidine used as a perineural adjuvant to ropivacaine, does not prolong the duration of sensory block when controlling for systemic effects

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Jakob Hessel; Jaeger, Pia; Sonne, Tobias Laier

2017-01-01

BACKGROUND: Clonidine used as an adjuvant to ropivacaine have been shown to prolong the duration of peripheral nerve blocks. The mechanism of action remains unclear. We hypothesized, that clonidine used as an adjuvant to ropivacaine extends the duration of an adductor canal block (ACB) by a perip......BACKGROUND: Clonidine used as an adjuvant to ropivacaine have been shown to prolong the duration of peripheral nerve blocks. The mechanism of action remains unclear. We hypothesized, that clonidine used as an adjuvant to ropivacaine extends the duration of an adductor canal block (ACB......) by a peripheral mechanism, compared to ropivacaine alone when controlling for systemic effects. METHODS: We conducted a paired, blinded, randomized trial in healthy volunteers. Participants received bilateral ACBs containing 20 ml ropivacaine 0.5% + 1 ml clonidine 150μg/ml in one leg and 20 ml ropivacaine 0.......5% + 1 ml saline in the other leg. The primary outcome measure was duration of sensory block assessed by temperature sensation (alcohol swab). Secondary outcome measures were duration of sensory block assessed by: pinprick, maximum pain during tonic heat stimulation, warmth detection threshold and heat...

On domain modelling of the service system with its application to enterprise information systems

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, J. W.; Wang, H. F.; Ding, J. L.; Furuta, K.; Kanno, T.; Ip, W. H.; Zhang, W. J.

2016-01-01

Information systems are a kind of service systems and they are throughout every element of a modern industrial and business system, much like blood in our body. Types of information systems are heterogeneous because of extreme uncertainty in changes in modern industrial and business systems. To effectively manage information systems, modelling of the work domain (or domain) of information systems is necessary. In this paper, a domain modelling framework for the service system is proposed and its application to the enterprise information system is outlined. The framework is defined based on application of a general domain modelling tool called function-context-behaviour-principle-state-structure (FCBPSS). The FCBPSS is based on a set of core concepts, namely: function, context, behaviour, principle, state and structure and system decomposition. Different from many other applications of FCBPSS in systems engineering, the FCBPSS is applied to both infrastructure and substance systems, which is novel and effective to modelling of service systems including enterprise information systems. It is to be noted that domain modelling of systems (e.g. enterprise information systems) is a key to integration of heterogeneous systems and to coping with unanticipated situations facing to systems.

Direct block scheduling technology: Analysis of Avidity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Felipe Ribeiro Souza

Full Text Available Abstract This study is focused on Direct Block Scheduling testing (Direct Multi-Period Scheduling methodology which schedules mine production considering the correct discount factor of each mining block, resulting in the final pit. Each block is analyzed individually in order to define the best target period. This methodology presents an improvement of the classical methodology derived from Lerchs-Grossmann's initial proposition improved by Whittle. This paper presents the differences between these methodologies, specially focused on the algorithms' avidity. Avidity is classically defined by the voracious search algorithms, whereupon some of the most famous greedy algorithms are Branch and Bound, Brutal Force and Randomized. Strategies based on heuristics can accentuate the voracity of the optimizer system. The applied algorithm use simulated annealing combined with Tabu Search. The most avid algorithm can select the most profitable blocks in early periods, leading to higher present value in the first periods of mine operation. The application of discount factors to blocks on the Lerchs-Grossmann's final pit has an accentuated effect with time, and this effect may make blocks scheduled for the end of the mine life unfeasible, representing a trend to a decrease in reported reserves.

The Quality of Work in the Belgian Service Voucher System.

Science.gov (United States)

Mousaid, Sarah; Huegaerts, Kelly; Bosmans, Kim; Julià, Mireia; Benach, Joan; Vanroelen, Christophe

2017-01-01

Several European countries implemented initiatives to boost the growth of the domestic cleaning sector. Few studies investigated the quality of work in these initiatives, although effects on workers' health and on social health inequalities can be expected. This study contributes to the scant research on this subject, by investigating the quality of work in the Belgian service voucher system - a subsidized system for domestic work. The applied research methodology includes a qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates, legislation and previous research about the service voucher system and of 40 in-depth interviews with service voucher workers. The study shows that the legal framework that regulates the system must be further enhanced in order to improve the quality of work in the service voucher system. In addition, the actors involved must be better controlled, and sanctioned in case of non-compliance with legislation. © The Author(s) 2016.

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System /TDRSS/ telecommunication services

Science.gov (United States)

Deerkoski, L. F.

1975-01-01

The TDRSS and tracking services define the telecommunication performance of the TDRSS between the RF interface with user spacecraft and the data interface with NASCOM at the ground terminal. Attention is given to system constraints, forward link services, multiple-access signal design parameters, S-band single access signal design parameters, multiple-access return link services, and single-access return link services.

Application of Sensor Technology for the Efficient Positioningand Assembling of Ship Blocks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sangdon Lee

2010-09-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes the application of sensor technology to assemble ship blocks efficiently. A sensor-based monitoring system is designed and implemented to improve shipbuilding productivity by reducing the labor cost for the adjustment of adequate positioning between ship blocks during pre-erection or erection stage. For the real-time remote monitoring of relative distances between two ship blocks, sensor nodes are applied to measure the distances between corresponding target points on the blocks. Highly precise positioning data can be transferred to a monitoring server via wireless network, and analyzed to support the decision making which needs to determine the next construction process; further adjustment or seam welding between the ship blocks. The developed system is expected to put to practical use, and increase the productivity during ship blocks assembly.

Multicore Performance of Block Algebraic Iterative Reconstruction Methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Hans Henrik B.; Hansen, Per Christian

2014-01-01

Algebraic iterative methods are routinely used for solving the ill-posed sparse linear systems arising in tomographic image reconstruction. Here we consider the algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) and the simultaneous iterative reconstruction techniques (SIRT), both of which rely on semiconv......Algebraic iterative methods are routinely used for solving the ill-posed sparse linear systems arising in tomographic image reconstruction. Here we consider the algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) and the simultaneous iterative reconstruction techniques (SIRT), both of which rely...... on semiconvergence. Block versions of these methods, based on a partitioning of the linear system, are able to combine the fast semiconvergence of ART with the better multicore properties of SIRT. These block methods separate into two classes: those that, in each iteration, access the blocks in a sequential manner...... a fixed relaxation parameter in each method, namely, the one that leads to the fastest semiconvergence. Computational results show that for multicore computers, the sequential approach is preferable....

N-Terminal Prodomain of Pfs230 Synthesized Using a Cell-Free System Is Sufficient To Induce Complement-Dependent Malaria Transmission-Blocking Activity▿

Science.gov (United States)

Tachibana, Mayumi; Wu, Yimin; Iriko, Hideyuki; Muratova, Olga; MacDonald, Nicholas J.; Sattabongkot, Jetsumon; Takeo, Satoru; Otsuki, Hitoshi; Torii, Motomi; Tsuboi, Takafumi

2011-01-01

The aim of a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine is to block the development of malaria parasites in the mosquito and thus prevent subsequent infection of the human host. Previous studies have demonstrated that the gametocyte/gamete surface protein Pfs230 can induce transmission-blocking immunity and have evaluated Escherichia coli-produced Pfs230 as a transmission-blocking vaccine candidate. In this study, we used the wheat germ cell-free expression system to produce N-terminal fragments of Pfs230 and evaluated the transmission-blocking activity of antisera raised against the recombinant Pfs230 protein. The rabbit antisera reacted to the surface of cultured gametocytes and gametes of the Plasmodium falciparum NF54 line, recognized the 360-kDa form of parasite-produced Pfs230 by Western blot assay, and reduced the infectivity of NF54 parasites to Anopheles stefensi mosquitoes in the presence of complement in a standard membrane feeding assay. Thus, our data demonstrate that the N-terminal pro domain of Pfs230 is sufficient to induce complement-dependent transmission-blocking activity against P. falciparum. PMID:21715579

N-terminal prodomain of Pfs230 synthesized using a cell-free system is sufficient to induce complement-dependent malaria transmission-blocking activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Tachibana, Mayumi; Wu, Yimin; Iriko, Hideyuki; Muratova, Olga; MacDonald, Nicholas J; Sattabongkot, Jetsumon; Takeo, Satoru; Otsuki, Hitoshi; Torii, Motomi; Tsuboi, Takafumi

2011-08-01

The aim of a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine is to block the development of malaria parasites in the mosquito and thus prevent subsequent infection of the human host. Previous studies have demonstrated that the gametocyte/gamete surface protein Pfs230 can induce transmission-blocking immunity and have evaluated Escherichia coli-produced Pfs230 as a transmission-blocking vaccine candidate. In this study, we used the wheat germ cell-free expression system to produce N-terminal fragments of Pfs230 and evaluated the transmission-blocking activity of antisera raised against the recombinant Pfs230 protein. The rabbit antisera reacted to the surface of cultured gametocytes and gametes of the Plasmodium falciparum NF54 line, recognized the 360-kDa form of parasite-produced Pfs230 by Western blot assay, and reduced the infectivity of NF54 parasites to Anopheles stefensi mosquitoes in the presence of complement in a standard membrane feeding assay. Thus, our data demonstrate that the N-terminal pro domain of Pfs230 is sufficient to induce complement-dependent transmission-blocking activity against P. falciparum.

New camera systems for fuel services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hummel, W.; Beck, H.J.

2010-01-01

AREVA NP Fuel Services have many years of experience in visual examination and measurements on fuel assemblies and associated core components by using state of the art cameras and measuring technologies. The used techniques allow the surface and dimensional characterization of materials and shapes by visual examination. New enhanced and sophisticated technologies for fuel services f. e. are two shielded color camera systems for use under water and close inspection of a fuel assembly. Nowadays the market requirements for detecting and characterization of small defects (lower than the 10th of one mm) or cracks and analyzing surface appearances on an irradiated fuel rod cladding or fuel assembly structure parts have increased. Therefore it is common practice to use movie cameras with higher resolution. The radiation resistance of high resolution CCD cameras is in general very low and it is not possible to use them unshielded close to a fuel assembly. By extending the camera with a mirror system and shielding around the sensitive parts, the movie camera can be utilized for fuel assembly inspection. AREVA NP Fuel Services is now equipped with such kind of movie cameras. (orig.)

Image-Based Pothole Detection System for ITS Service and Road Management System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seung-Ki Ryu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Potholes can generate damage such as flat tire and wheel damage, impact and damage of lower vehicle, vehicle collision, and major accidents. Thus, accurately and quickly detecting potholes is one of the important tasks for determining proper strategies in ITS (Intelligent Transportation System service and road management system. Several efforts have been made for developing a technology which can automatically detect and recognize potholes. In this study, a pothole detection method based on two-dimensional (2D images is proposed for improving the existing method and designing a pothole detection system to be applied to ITS service and road management system. For experiments, 2D road images that were collected by a survey vehicle in Korea were used and the performance of the proposed method was compared with that of the existing method for several conditions such as road, recording, and brightness. The results are promising, and the information extracted using the proposed method can be used, not only in determining the preliminary maintenance for a road management system and in taking immediate action for their repair and maintenance, but also in providing alert information of potholes to drivers as one of ITS services.

Environment-induced self-assembly in phase separated block copolymer systems: A SANS investigation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dutta, Naba K.; Thompson, Sandra; Roy Choudhury, Namita; Knott, Robert

2006-01-01

In this research, we examine the effect of non-selective solvent on the large-scale mesoscopic ordering in asymmetric block copolymers, poly(styrene-block-ethylene/butylene-block-styrene) (SEBS) using small angle neutron scattering technique (SANS). SANS measurements were carried out over a wide range of concentrations and temperatures. Evolution of the self-assembled phase morphology in such polymer with the thermodynamic selectivity of solvent, temperature and concentration has been discussed. Correlation between morphology and thermorheological behavior of the gels has also been established

Editorial Special issue: Operations Management in Service Systems Downloaded from

OpenAIRE

Babai , Mohamed Zied; Jouini , Oualid

2013-01-01

International audience; The service sector is the largest sector of the economy in most industrialized nations, and is fast becoming the largest sector in developing nations as well. Driven by today's new business environment, including advanced telecommunications, accelerated business globalization, increased automation and highly on-demand and competitive innovations, the complexity of the operations management of service systems is continuously increasing. Managers of service systems are w...

Controlling block copolymer phase behavior using ionic surfactant

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ray, D.; Aswal, V. K. [Solid State Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400 085, India E-mail: debes.phys@gmail.com (India)

2016-05-23

The phase behavior of poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(propylene oxide-poly(ethylene oxide) PEO-PPO-PEO triblock copolymer [P85 (EO{sub 26}PO{sub 39}EO{sub 26})] in presence of anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in aqueous solution as a function of temperature has been studied using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). The measurements have been carried out for fixed concentrations (1 wt%) of block copolymer and surfactants. Each of the individual components (block copolymer and surfactant) and the nanoparticle–surfactant mixed system have been examined at varying temperature. The block copolymer P85 forms spherical micelles at room temperature whereas shows sphere-to-rod like micelle transition at higher temperatures. On the other hand, SDS surfactant forms ellipsoidal micelles over a wide temperature range. Interestingly, it is found that phase behavior of mixed micellar system (P85 + SDS) as a function of temperature is drastically different from that of P85, giving the control over the temperature-dependent phase behavior of block copolymers.

A framework for hierarchical and recursive monitoring of service based systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Comuzzi, M.; Spanoudakis, G.

2009-01-01

Runtime monitoring of Service Based Systems (SBSs) usually relies on information derived from I/O messages exchanged within business processes implementing services. When service provisioning is regulated by complex Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between service requesters, (composed) services, and

Information service system in the power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maruyama, Yukio; Mizuno, Hiromi; Shoda, Kohei; Sekine, Yasuhiro.

1994-01-01

For the purpose of improving the intelligent productivity in offices, the introduction of PC-LAN system by the initiative of users has been advanced. In this example, by connecting many personal computers, the information service system that possesses the information on the business of power stations in common was constructed, and intelligent productivity was improved. This information service system is that in which all users are the sponsor as the users and the offerer of information are united, therefore, high conscience level is required for individual users, and the attentive device for the easiness of use was exercised so as to always maintain newest information. The background of introducing this system is explained. The information systems in power stations are the system related to operation control, preventive maintenance and so on and the system for helping the routine works of personnel. The main functions are the offer of the operational data of power stations, the offer of the information on the expected visitors to the PR hall of nuclear power stations, electronic information exchange and so on. The constitution and the features of the system are reported. (K.I.)

Investigations on Evaluation of Some QoS Aspects of Service Oriented Computing System Based on Web Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Subhash MEDHI

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Service Oriented Computing is a design paradigm that utilizes autonomous heterogeneous service applications as the fundamental elements to develop new composite functionalities at reduced cost and time. Web service is the standard way to implement the service oriented computing concepts in which business functions and resources are published, described, discovered, orchestrated and invoked using open standards and protocols. The web services emerged as an intelligent middleware web based technology for sharing business processes and resources amongst the disparate enterprises over the internet. Performance evaluation of service is an important criterion to be assessed by end users and service providers before adopting web services to deal with the challenging global markets. In this perspective, we propose to implement a composite ATM services using. Net technology to evaluate trustworthiness of web services in dealing with massive users. The uniqueness of our proposed system is the hierarchically designed parent and child services where the parent service authenticates a user to access resources and redirects the user’s query for executing child service for adequate solutions. The industry standard testing software tool, Mercury LoadRunner was deployed to test our proposed e-ATM system and record the performance metrics to analyse the quality aspects of the service. The outcome of the experiment will help in adoption and usage of the web services in diverse business enterprises. We present here the architecture, framework of testing, transaction status and reliability estimation of web services under massive stress of service users.

Wide-area service water information management system; Koiki suido joho kanri system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2000-01-10

A wide-area service water system is required to be more resistant to emergency situations, e.g., drought and hazards, and meet consumers' diversifying needs in each area, while stably supplying water at ordinary times by utilizing purification plants located in places within its system and piping networks in the water area. Fuji Electric is providing information management systems for wide-area service water systems, developed based on the company's abundant system know-hows accumulated for a long time and latest techniques. They are characterized by (1) Web monitoring, aided by an intranet system, (2) high-speed data transmission by a digital transmission system, (3) open network environments, and (4) emergency calling of the staff, and management of stock materials. The system allows to monitor operating conditions within the area on real time, needless to say, and business administration with civil minimum taken into consideration, e.g., stabilizing water quality by coordinating the purification plants within the system. (translated by NEDO)

Activity-Tracking Service for Building Operating Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hviid, Jakob; Kjærgaard, Mikkel Baun

2018-01-01

of Things sensors and devices promise to deliver rich data about human activities and control of loads. However, existing proposals for building operating systems that should combine such data and control opportunities does not provide concepts and support for activity data. In this paper we propose...... an activity-tracking service for building operating systems. The service is designed to consider the security, privacy, integration, extendability and scalability challenges in the building setting. We provide initial findings for testing the system in a proof of concept evaluation using a set of common......Several high consuming electricity loads in retail stores are currently highly intertwined in human activities. Without knowledge of such activities it is difficult to improve the energy efficiency of the loads operation for sustainability and cost reasons. The increasing availability of Internet...

Opportunities of creating multi-agent systems in the service sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shatsky A.A.

2017-03-01

Full Text Available the paper seeks to examine opportunities to create multi-agent systems (MAS in the service sector. Using methods of theoretical analysis and synthesis, the author attempts to apply a multi-agent technology to description of the socio-economic system, such as the service sector. As a result, the author identifies three types of MAS in the service sector based on different types of architecture of intelligent information systems. The research shows that the problem posed by the author requires further study and clarification of results

Service Quality Management in the ITS Telecommunications Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomas Zelinka

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Guaranteed selected quality of telecommunication service and wide area coverage are typical requirements of the ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems applications. Extensive range of wireless data services with reasonable coverage is provided by public wireless services operators, however, mostly no guaranteed relevant range of quality and security is available. ITS services require cost-effectively solution which can be resolved by combination of the "core" public solution with the other public as well as private services where and when it is needed. Such approach requires implementation of the relevant flexible system architecture supported by the efficient decision processes. ITS specific service security requirements would not underestimated, as well. Special situation is identified in case of the C2I (Car to Infrastructure and C2C (Car to Car communication namely if the vehicle on board unit is interconnected with the vehicle CAN (Controlled Area Network based network. Such configurations significantly increase potential of dangerous intruders´ attacks. Probability of the critical hazards appearances grows if the ITS data are accessible in the wide area networks. That is also the main reason why relevant telecommunications security support is understood as one of the crucial part of the ITS telecommunications solution.

Strategies & recent development of transmission-blocking vaccines against Plasmodium falciparum

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neha Chaturvedi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Transmission blocking malaria vaccines are aimed to block the development and maturity of sexual stages of parasite within mosquitoes. The vaccine candidate antigens (Pfs25, Pfs48/45, Pfs230 that have shown transmission blocking immunity in model systems are in different stages of development. These antigens are immunogenic with limited genetic diversity. Pfs25 is a leading candidate and currently in phase I clinical trial. Efforts are now focused on the cost-effective production of potent antigens using safe adjuvants and optimization of vaccine delivery system that are capable of inducing strong immune responses. This review addresses the potential usefulness, development strategies, challenges, clinical trials and current status of Plasmodium falciparum sexual stage malaria vaccine candidate antigens for the development of transmission-blocking vaccines.

Characteristics of Strategies in Product/Service-System Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tan, Adrian; McAloone, Timothy Charles

2006-01-01

The underlying principle in Product/Service-Systems (PSS) strategy is to shift from business based on the value of the transfer of product ownership and responsibility, to business based on the value of utility of the product and services. This paper identifies characteristics of various strategi...

The impact of domestic rainwater harvesting systems in storm water runoff mitigation at the urban block scale.

Science.gov (United States)

Palla, A; Gnecco, I; La Barbera, P

2017-04-15

In the framework of storm water management, Domestic Rainwater Harvesting (DRWH) systems are recently recognized as source control solutions according to LID principles. In order to assess the impact of these systems in storm water runoff control, a simple methodological approach is proposed. The hydrologic-hydraulic modelling is undertaken using EPA SWMM; the DRWH is implemented in the model by using a storage unit linked to the building water supply system and to the drainage network. The proposed methodology has been implemented for a residential urban block located in Genoa (Italy). Continuous simulations are performed by using the high-resolution rainfall data series for the ''do nothing'' and DRWH scenarios. The latter includes the installation of a DRWH system for each building of the urban block. Referring to the test site, the peak and volume reduction rate evaluated for the 2125 rainfall events are respectively equal to 33 and 26 percent, on average (with maximum values of 65 percent for peak and 51 percent for volume). In general, the adopted methodology indicates that the hydrologic performance of the storm water drainage network equipped with DRWH systems is noticeable even for the design storm event (T = 10 years) and the rainfall depth seems to affect the hydrologic performance at least when the total depth exceeds 20 mm. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Generalized Block Failure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jönsson, Jeppe

2015-01-01

Block tearing is considered in several codes as a pure block tension or a pure block shear failure mechanism. However in many situations the load acts eccentrically and involves the transfer of a substantial moment in combination with the shear force and perhaps a normal force. A literature study...... shows that no readily available tests with a well-defined substantial eccentricity have been performed. This paper presents theoretical and experimental work leading towards generalized block failure capacity methods. Simple combination of normal force, shear force and moment stress distributions along...... yield lines around the block leads to simple interaction formulas similar to other interaction formulas in the codes....

Natural convection in a horizontal channel provided with heat generating blocks: Discussion of the isothermal blocks validity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mouhtadi, D.; Amahmid, A.; Hasnaoui, M.; Bennacer, R.

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► We examine the validity of isothermal model for blocks with internal heat generation. ► Criteria based on comparison of total and local quantities are adopted. ► Thermal conductivity and Biot number required for the validity of the isothermal model are dependent on the Rayleigh number. ► The validity conditions are also affected by the multiplicity of solutions. - Abstract: This work presents a numerical study of air natural convection in a horizontal channel provided with heating blocks periodically distributed on its lower adiabatic surface. The blocks are submitted to a uniform heat generation and the channel upper surface is maintained at a cold constant temperature. The main objective of this study is to examine the validity of the model with isothermal blocks for the system under consideration. Then the calculations are performed using two different models. In the first (denoted Model 1 or M1) the calculations are performed by imposing a uniform volumetric heat generation inside the blocks. In the second model (denoted Model 2 or M2), the blocks are maintained isothermal at the average blocks surface temperature deduced from the Model 1. The controlling parameters of the present problem are the thermal conductivity ratio of the solid block and the fluid (0.1 ⩽ k* = k s /k a ⩽ 200) and the Rayleigh number (10 4 ⩽ Ra ⩽ 10 7 ). The validity of the isothermal model is examined for various Ra by using criteria based on local and mean heat transfer characteristics. It is found that some solutions of the isothermal model do not reproduce correctly the results of the first model even for very large conductivity ratios. The Biot number below which the Model 2 is valid depends strongly on the Rayleigh number and the type of solution.

System aspects of management technology for scientific and educational services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. A. Zatsarinnyy

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Research purpose: to develop the technology of operational-technical management of scientific and educational services. Methods: methods of patent research and analysis of critical technologies of information and control systems; methods of system approach to organize and manage IT services to meet business needs. Topicality. The state policy in the sphere of national security and socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, carried out in the face of new threats requires correcting structural imbalances in the economy. National interests should be implemented by means of strategic priorities in the various sectors of the economy, in the financial sphere - the timely implementation of government programs. In the Message of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly on December 1, 2016 one of the priorities defined the creation of a national research infrastructure, representing the information and technology platform for the integration of the intellectual resources in the field of science, education and production with the aim of creating the conditions for qualitative changes in the field of science and technology. In this connection, scientific-methodical and systematic technical issues to systematize services of scientific and educational institutions of the country and creation of the united informational and analytical system of the management of such services seem to be topical. Within the framework of the whole complex of problems to design such a system, the development issues of technologies for the effective operational-technical management of scientific and educational services are of great interest. Results. The technology of operational-technical management of scientific and educational services was developed, which is a complex of technical solutions to provide information support for the activities of organizational systems – consumers and suppliers of scientific and educational

A service based adaptive U-learning system using UX.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeong, Hwa-Young; Yi, Gangman

2014-01-01

In recent years, traditional development techniques for e-learning systems have been changing to become more convenient and efficient. One new technology in the development of application systems includes both cloud and ubiquitous computing. Cloud computing can support learning system processes by using services while ubiquitous computing can provide system operation and management via a high performance technical process and network. In the cloud computing environment, a learning service application can provide a business module or process to the user via the internet. This research focuses on providing the learning material and processes of courses by learning units using the services in a ubiquitous computing environment. And we also investigate functions that support users' tailored materials according to their learning style. That is, we analyzed the user's data and their characteristics in accordance with their user experience. We subsequently applied the learning process to fit on their learning performance and preferences. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed system outperforms learning effects to learners better than existing techniques.

Service Line Management: A New Paradigm in Health Care System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rafat Rezapour Nasrabad

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Health care organizations are required to implement modern management practices and approaches due to the importance of improving quality and increasing efficiency of health care services. Service line management of healthcare services is one of the new approaches that managers of health sectors are interested in. The “service line” approach will organize the management of inpatient and outpatient in clinical services focusing on patient diagnostic clusters. Services specific in each patient diagnostic cluster will be offered by a multidisciplinary team including nurses, physicians, and so no. Accordingly, the present study aims to evaluate the features, process and benefits of service line management approach in the provision of health services. In this descriptive study, internal and external scientific database have been reviewed and the necessary data have been extracted from the latest research projects and related scientific documents. The results showed that the new management approach is based on a paradigm shift from traditional health care system management to healthcare service line management with a focus on managers’ competencies. Four specific manager’s competencies in this new management model are: conceptual, collaborative, interpersonal, and leadership competencies. Theses competencies should be developed in health system managers so as to lead to organizational excellency and improvement of health service quality. The health sector managers should strengthen these four key competencies and act on them. Then they will become effective leaders and managers in the health system.

A mobile network-based multimedia teleconference system for homecare services.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Zhaomin; He, Aiguo; Wei, Daming

2008-03-01

Because most research and development for homecare services have focused on providing connections between home and service centers, the goal of the present work is to develop techniques and create realtime communications to connect service centers and homecare workers in mobile environments. A key technical issue for this research is how to overcome the limitation of bandwidth in mobile media and networks. An effort has been made to balance performance of communication and basic demands in telehealth through optimized system design and technical implementation. Implementations using third generation (3G) Freedom Of Mobile multimedia Access (FOMA) and Personal Handyphone System (PHS) were developed and evaluated. We conclude that the system we developed based on 3G FOMA provides sufficient and satisfactory functions for use in homecare services.

Core-Shell Particles as Building Blocks for Systems with High Duality Symmetry

Science.gov (United States)

Rahimzadegan, Aso; Rockstuhl, Carsten; Fernandez-Corbaton, Ivan

2018-05-01

Material electromagnetic duality symmetry requires a system to have equal electric and magnetic responses. Intrinsically dual materials that meet the duality conditions at the level of the constitutive relations do not exist in many frequency bands. Nevertheless, discrete objects like metallic helices and homogeneous dielectric spheres can be engineered to approximate the dual behavior. We exploit the extra degrees of freedom of a core-shell dielectric sphere in a particle optimization procedure. The duality symmetry of the resulting particle is more than 1 order of magnitude better than previously reported nonmagnetic objects. We use T -matrix-based multiscattering techniques to show that the improvement is transferred onto the duality symmetry of composite objects when the core-shell particle is used as a building block instead of homogeneous spheres. These results are relevant for the fashioning of systems with high duality symmetry, which are required for some technologically important effects.

31 CFR 587.505 - Entries in certain accounts for normal service charges authorized.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... charges authorized. (a) A U.S. financial institution is authorized to debit any blocked account held at that financial institution in payment or reimbursement for normal service charges owed it by the owner of that blocked account. (b) As used in this section, the term normal service charge shall include...

31 CFR 540.504 - Entries in certain accounts for normal service charges authorized.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... Statements of Licensing Policy § 540.504 Entries in certain accounts for normal service charges authorized. (a) A U.S. financial institution is authorized to debit any blocked account held by that financial institution in payment or reimbursement for normal service charges owed to it by the owner of the blocked...

Design of a Secure System Considering Quality of Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seondong Heo

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Improvements in networking technologies have provided users with useful information services. Such information services may bring convenience and efficiency, but might be accompanied by vulnerabilities to a variety of attacks. Therefore, a variety of research to enhance the security of the systems and get the services at the same time has been carried out. Especially, research on intrusion-tolerant systems (ITSs has been conducted in order to survive against every intrusion, rather than to detect and prevent them. In this paper, an ITS based on effective resource conversion (ERC is presented to achieve the goal of intrusion-tolerance. Instead of using the fixed number of virtual machines (VMs to process requests and recover as in conventional approaches, the ITS based on ERC can transform the assigned resources depending on the system status. This scheme is proved to maintain a certain level of quality of service (QoS and quality of security service (QoSS in threatening environments. The performance of ERC is compared with previous studies on ITS by CSIM 20, and it is verified that the proposed scheme is more effective in retaining a specific level of QoS and QoSS.

Customer premise service study for 30/20 GHz satellite system

Science.gov (United States)

Milton, R. T.; Ross, D. P.; Harcar, A. R.; Freedenberg, P.; Schoen, D.

1983-01-01

Satellite systems in which the space segment operates in the 30/20 GHz frequency band are defined and compared as to their potential for providing various types of communications services to customer premises and the economic and technical feasibility of doing so. Technical tasks performed include: market postulation, definition of the ground segment, definition of the space segment, definition of the integrated satellite system, service costs for satellite systems, sensitivity analysis, and critical technology. Based on an analysis of market data, a sufficiently large market for services is projected so as to make the system economically viable. A large market, and hence a high capacity satellite system, is found to be necessary to minimize service costs, i.e., economy of scale is found to hold. The wide bandwidth expected to be available in the 30/20 GHz band, along with frequency reuse which further increases the effective system bandwidth, makes possible the high capacity system. Extensive ground networking is required in most systems to both connect users into the system and to interconnect Earth stations to provide spatial diversity. Earth station spatial diversity is found to be a cost effective means of compensating the large fading encountered in the 30/20 GHz operating band.

Experimental scheme and restoration algorithm of block compression sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Linxia; Zhou, Qun; Ke, Jun

2018-01-01

Compressed Sensing (CS) can use the sparseness of a target to obtain its image with much less data than that defined by the Nyquist sampling theorem. In this paper, we study the hardware implementation of a block compression sensing system and its reconstruction algorithms. Different block sizes are used. Two algorithms, the orthogonal matching algorithm (OMP) and the full variation minimum algorithm (TV) are used to obtain good reconstructions. The influence of block size on reconstruction is also discussed.

Improvement in the distribution of services in multi-agent systems with SCODA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jesús Ángel ROMÁN GALLEGO

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The distribution of services on multi-agent systems allows it to reduce to the agents their computational load. The functionality of the system does not reside in the agents themselves, however it is ubiquitously distributed so that allows you to perform tasks in parallel avoiding an additional computational cost to the elements in the system. The distribution of services that offers SCODA (Distributed and Specialized Agent Communities allows an intelligent management of these services provided by agents of the system and the parallel execution of threads that allow to respond to requests asynchronously, which implies an improvement in the performance of the system at both the computational level as the level of quality of service in the control of these services. The comparison carried out in the case of study that is presented in this paper demonstrates the existing improvement in the distribution of services on systems based on SCODA.

Valuation of Electric Power System Services and Technologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kintner-Meyer, Michael C. W. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Homer, Juliet S. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Balducci, Patrick J. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Weimar, Mark R. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2017-08-01

Accurate valuation of existing and new technologies and grid services has been recognized to be important to stimulate investment in grid modernization. Clear, transparent, and accepted methods for estimating the total value (i.e., total benefits minus cost) of grid technologies and services are necessary for decision makers to make informed decisions. This applies to home owners interested in distributed energy technologies, as well as to service providers offering new demand response services, and utility executives evaluating best investment strategies to meet their service obligation. However, current valuation methods lack consistency, methodological rigor, and often the capabilities to identify and quantify multiple benefits of grid assets or new and innovative services. Distributed grid assets often have multiple benefits that are difficult to quantify because of the locational context in which they operate. The value is temporally, operationally, and spatially specific. It varies widely by distribution systems, transmission network topology, and the composition of the generation mix. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) recently established a benefit-cost framework that proposes a process for estimating multiple benefits of distributed energy resources (DERs) and the associated cost. This document proposes an extension of this endeavor that offers a generalizable framework for valuation that quantifies the broad set of values for a wide range of technologies (including energy efficiency options, distributed resources, transmission, and generation) as well as policy options that affect all aspects of the entire generation and delivery system of the electricity infrastructure. The extension includes a comprehensive valuation framework of monetizable and non-monetizable benefits of new technologies and services beyond the traditional reliability objectives. The benefits are characterized into the following categories: sustainability, affordability, and

Epidural block

Science.gov (United States)

... page: //medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000484.htm Epidural block - pregnancy To use the sharing features on this page, please enable JavaScript. An epidural block is a numbing medicine given by injection (shot) ...

Design of an operations manager selection system in service encounter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tanawin Nunthaphanich

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to provide criteria for selecting operations managers at the ‘service encounter’ for mobile telecommunication companies, and develop a system for this multi-criteria decision-making scheme based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP. There are three main criteria for evaluating the capability of service-encounter operation managers: (1 the ability to design service process; (2 the ability to operate service process; (3 the ability to conduct improvement. The AHP operation manager selection tool was developed based on the complex problems at the service encounter. It was created as a decision support system which was used to recruit and evaluate operations managers’ capability for the purpose of career advancement.

Wake on LAN over Internet as web service system on chip

OpenAIRE

Maciá Pérez, Francisco; Gil Martínez-Abarca, Juan Antonio; Ramos Morillo, Héctor; Mora Gimeno, Francisco José; Marcos Jorquera, Diego; Gilart Iglesias, Virgilio

2009-01-01

In this paper we introduce a System on Chip (SoC) designed to run a particular Web Service (WS) in an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). The system has been designed devoid of processor and software and conceived as a hardware pattern for a trouble-free design of network services offered as WS in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Therefore, the chip is not only able to act as SOAP Service Provider but, it is also capable of registering the service on its own in an external Bro...

Properties of a class of block-iterative methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elfving, Tommy; Nikazad, Touraj

2009-01-01

We study a class of block-iterative (BI) methods proposed in image reconstruction for solving linear systems. A subclass, symmetric block-iteration (SBI), is derived such that for this subclass both semi-convergence analysis and stopping-rules developed for fully simultaneous iteration apply. Also results on asymptotic convergence are given, e.g., BI exhibit cyclic convergence irrespective of the consistency of the linear system. Further it is shown that the limit points of SBI satisfy a weighted least-squares problem. We also present numerical results obtained using a trained stopping rule on SBI

Incomplete block factorization preconditioning for indefinite elliptic problems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Guo, Chun-Hua [Univ. of Calgary, Alberta (Canada)

1996-12-31

The application of the finite difference method to approximate the solution of an indefinite elliptic problem produces a linear system whose coefficient matrix is block tridiagonal and symmetric indefinite. Such a linear system can be solved efficiently by a conjugate residual method, particularly when combined with a good preconditioner. We show that specific incomplete block factorization exists for the indefinite matrix if the mesh size is reasonably small. And this factorization can serve as an efficient preconditioner. Some efforts are made to estimate the eigenvalues of the preconditioned matrix. Numerical results are also given.

20 CFR 655.185 - Job service complaint system; enforcement of work contracts.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Job service complaint system; enforcement of... Job service complaint system; enforcement of work contracts. (a) Filing with DOL. Complaints arising under this subpart must be filed through the Job Service Complaint System, as described in 20 CFR part...

Block 3 X-band receiver-exciter

Science.gov (United States)

Johns, C. E.

1987-01-01

The development of an X-band exciter, for use in the X-Band Uplink Subsystem, was completed. The exciter generates the drive signal for the X-band transmitter and also generates coherent test signals for the S- and X-band Block 3 translator and a Doppler reference signal for the Doppler extractor system. In addition to the above, the exciter generates other reference signals that are described. Also presented is an overview of the exciter design and some test data taken on the prototype. A brief discussion of the Block 3 Doppler extractor is presented.

Integrated modelling of ecosystem services and energy systems research

Science.gov (United States)

Agarwala, Matthew; Lovett, Andrew; Bateman, Ian; Day, Brett; Agnolucci, Paolo; Ziv, Guy

2016-04-01

The UK Government is formally committed to reducing carbon emissions and protecting and improving natural capital and the environment. However, actually delivering on these objectives requires an integrated approach to addressing two parallel challenges: de-carbonising future energy system pathways; and safeguarding natural capital to ensure the continued flow of ecosystem services. Although both emphasise benefiting from natural resources, efforts to connect natural capital and energy systems research have been limited, meaning opportunities to improve management of natural resources and meet society's energy needs could be missed. The ecosystem services paradigm provides a consistent conceptual framework that applies in multiple disciplines across the natural and economic sciences, and facilitates collaboration between them. At the forefront of the field, integrated ecosystem service - economy models have guided public- and private-sector decision making at all levels. Models vary in sophistication from simple spreadsheet tools to complex software packages integrating biophysical, GIS and economic models and draw upon many fields, including ecology, hydrology, geography, systems theory, economics and the social sciences. They also differ in their ability to value changes in natural capital and ecosystem services at various spatial and temporal scales. Despite these differences, current models share a common feature: their treatment of energy systems is superficial at best. In contrast, energy systems research has no widely adopted, unifying conceptual framework that organises thinking about key system components and interactions. Instead, the literature is organised around modelling approaches, including life cycle analyses, econometric investigations, linear programming and computable general equilibrium models. However, some consistencies do emerge. First, often contain a linear set of steps, from exploration to resource supply, fuel processing, conversion

Exploring atmospheric blocking with GPS radio occultation observations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. Brunner

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Atmospheric blocking has been closely investigated in recent years due to its impact on weather and climate, such as heat waves, droughts, and flooding. We use, for the first time, satellite-based observations from Global Positioning System (GPS radio occultation (RO and explore their ability to resolve blocking in order to potentially open up new avenues complementing models and reanalyses. RO delivers globally available and vertically highly resolved profiles of atmospheric variables such as temperature and geopotential height (GPH. Applying a standard blocking detection algorithm, we find that RO data robustly capture blocking as demonstrated for two well-known blocking events over Russia in summer 2010 and over Greenland in late winter 2013. During blocking episodes, vertically resolved GPH gradients show a distinct anomalous behavior compared to climatological conditions up to 300 hPa and sometimes even further up into the tropopause. The accompanying increase in GPH of up to 300 m in the upper troposphere yields a pronounced tropopause height increase. Corresponding temperatures rise up to 10 K in the middle and lower troposphere. These results demonstrate the feasibility and potential of RO to detect and resolve blocking and in particular to explore the vertical structure of the atmosphere during blocking episodes. This new observation-based view is available globally at the same quality so that blocking in the Southern Hemisphere can also be studied with the same reliability as in the Northern Hemisphere.

Development of an Innovation Model Based on a Service-Oriented Product Service System (PSS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seungkyum Kim

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Recently, there have been many attempts to cope with increasingly-diversified and ever-changing customer needs by combining products and services that are critical components of innovation models. Although not only manufacturers, but also service providers, try to integrate products and services, most of the previous studies on Product Service System (PSS development deal with how to effectively integrate services into products from the product-centric point of view. Services provided by manufacturers’ PSSes, such as delivery services, training services, disposal services, and so on, offer customers ancillary value, whereas products of service providers’ PSSes enrich core value by enhancing the functionality and quality of the service. Thus, designing an effective PSS development process from the service-centric point of view is an important research topic. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to propose a service-oriented PSS development process, which consists of four stages: (1 strategic planning; (2 idea generation and selection; (3 service design; and (4 product development. In the proposed approach, the PSS development project is initiated and led by a service provider from a service-centric point of view. From the perspective of methodology, customer needs are converted into product functions according to Quality Function Deployment (QFD, while Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP is employed to prioritize the functions. Additionally, this paper illustrates a service-oriented PSS development that demonstrates the application of the proposed process. The proposed process and illustration are expected to serve as a foundation for research on service-oriented PSS development and as a useful guideline for service providers who are considering the development of a service-oriented PSS.

Predictability of blocking

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tosi, E.; Ruti, P.; Tibaldi, S.; D'Andrea, F.

1994-01-01

Tibaldi and Molteni (1990, hereafter referred to as TM) had previously investigated operational blocking predictability by the ECMWF model and the possible relationships between model systematic error and blocking in the winter season of the Northern Hemisphere, using seven years of ECMWF operational archives of analyses and day 1 to 10 forecasts. They showed that fewer blocking episodes than in the real atmosphere were generally simulated by the model, and that this deficiency increased with increasing forecast time. As a consequence of this, a major contribution to the systematic error in the winter season was shown to derive from the inability of the model to properly forecast blocking. In this study, the analysis performed in TM for the first seven winter seasons of the ECMWF operational model is extended to the subsequent five winters, during which model development, reflecting both resolution increases and parametrisation modifications, continued unabated. In addition the objective blocking index developed by TM has been applied to the observed data to study the natural low frequency variability of blocking. The ability to simulate blocking of some climate models has also been tested

Migration of the CERN IT data centre support system to ServiceNow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alvarez Alonso, R; Arneodo, G; Barring, O

2014-01-01

The large potential and flexibility of the ServiceNow infrastructure based on 'best practises' methods is allowing the migration of some of the ticketing systems traditionally used for the monitoring of the servers and services available at the CERN IT Computer Centre. This migration enables the standardization and globalization of the ticketing and control systems implementing a generic system extensible to other departments and users. One of the activities of the Service Management project together with the Computing Facilities group has been the migration of the ITCM structure based on Remedy to ServiceNow within the context of one of the ITIL processes called Event Management. The experience gained during the first months of operation has been instrumental towards the migration to ServiceNow of other service monitoring systems and databases. The usage of this structure is also extended to the service tracking at the Wigner Centre in Budapest.

Migration of the CERN IT Data Centre Support System to ServiceNow

Science.gov (United States)

Alvarez Alonso, R.; Arneodo, G.; Barring, O.; Bonfillou, E.; Coelho dos Santos, M.; Dore, V.; Lefebure, V.; Fedorko, I.; Grossir, A.; Hefferman, J.; Mendez Lorenzo, P.; Moller, M.; Pera Mira, O.; Salter, W.; Trevisani, F.; Toteva, Z.

2014-06-01

The large potential and flexibility of the ServiceNow infrastructure based on "best practises" methods is allowing the migration of some of the ticketing systems traditionally used for the monitoring of the servers and services available at the CERN IT Computer Centre. This migration enables the standardization and globalization of the ticketing and control systems implementing a generic system extensible to other departments and users. One of the activities of the Service Management project together with the Computing Facilities group has been the migration of the ITCM structure based on Remedy to ServiceNow within the context of one of the ITIL processes called Event Management. The experience gained during the first months of operation has been instrumental towards the migration to ServiceNow of other service monitoring systems and databases. The usage of this structure is also extended to the service tracking at the Wigner Centre in Budapest.

US National Geothermal Data System: Web feature services and system operations

Science.gov (United States)

Richard, Stephen; Clark, Ryan; Allison, M. Lee; Anderson, Arlene

2013-04-01

The US National Geothermal Data System is being developed with support from the US Department of Energy to reduce risk in geothermal energy development by providing online access to the body of geothermal data available in the US. The system is being implemented using Open Geospatial Consortium web services for catalog search (CSW), map browsing (WMS), and data access (WFS). The catalog now includes 2427 registered resources, mostly individual documents accessible via URL. 173 WMS and WFS services are registered, hosted by 4 NGDS system nodes, as well as 6 other state geological surveys. Simple feature schema for interchange formats have been developed by an informal community process in which draft content models are developed based on the information actually available in most data provider's internal datasets. A template pattern is used for the content models so that commonly used content items have the same name and data type across models. Models are documented in Excel workbooks and posted for community review with a deadline for comment; at the end of the comment period a technical working group reviews and discusses comments and votes on adoption. When adopted, an XML schema is implemented for the content model. Our approach has been to keep the focus of each interchange schema narrow, such that simple-feature (flat file) XML schema are sufficient to implement the content model. Keeping individual interchange formats simple, and allowing flexibility to introduce new content models as needed have both assisted in adoption of the service architecture. One problem that remains to be solved is that off-the-shelf server packages (GeoServer, ArcGIS server) do not permit configuration of a normative schema location to be bound with XML namespaces in instance documents. Such configuration is possible with GeoServer using a more complex deployment process. XML interchange format schema versions are indicated by the namespace URI; because of the schema location

Blocking sets in Desarguesian planes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blokhuis, A.; Miklós, D.; Sós, V.T.; Szönyi, T.

1996-01-01

We survey recent results concerning the size of blocking sets in desarguesian projective and affine planes, and implications of these results and the technique to prove them, to related problemis, such as the size of maximal partial spreads, small complete arcs, small strong representative systems

On Outage Performance of Spectrum-Sharing Communication over M-Block Fading

KAUST Repository

Alabbasi, AbdulRahman

2015-12-06

In this paper, we consider a cognitive radio system in which a block-fading channel is assumed. Each transmission frame consists of M blocks and each block undergoes a different channel gain. Instantaneous channel state information about the interference links remains unknown to the primary and secondary users. We minimize the secondary user\\'s targeted outage probability over the block-fading channels. To protect the primary user, a statistical constraint on its targeted outage probability is enforced. The secondary user\\'s targeted outage region and the corresponding optimal power are derived. We also propose two sub-optimal power strategies and derive compact expressions for the corresponding outage probabilities. These probabilities are shown to be asymptotic lower and upper bounds on the outage probability. Utilizing these bounds, we derive the exact diversity order of the secondary user outage probability. Selected numerical results are presented to characterize the system\\'s behavior.

An Approach for On-Board Software Building Blocks Cooperation and Interfaces Definition

Science.gov (United States)

Pascucci, Dario; Campolo, Giovanni; Candia, Sante; Lisio, Giovanni

2010-08-01

This paper provides an insight on the Avionic SW architecture developed by Thales Alenia Space Italy (TAS-I) to achieve structuring of the OBSW as a set of self-standing and re-usable building blocks. It is initially described the underlying framework for building blocks cooperation, which is based on ECSSE-70 packets forwarding (for services request to a building block) and standard parameters exchange for data communication. Subsequently it is discussed the high level of flexibility and scalability of the resulting architecture, reporting as example an implementation of the Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) function which exploits the proposed architecture. The presented approach evolves from avionic SW architecture developed in the scope of the project PRIMA (Mult-Purpose Italian Re-configurable Platform) and has been adopted for the Sentinel-1 Avionic Software (ASW).

Newborn screening healthcare information system based on service-oriented architecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsieh, Sung-Huai; Hsieh, Sheau-Ling; Chien, Yin-Hsiu; Weng, Yung-Ching; Hsu, Kai-Ping; Chen, Chi-Huang; Tu, Chien-Ming; Wang, Zhenyu; Lai, Feipei

2010-08-01

In this paper, we established a newborn screening system under the HL7/Web Services frameworks. We rebuilt the NTUH Newborn Screening Laboratory's original standalone architecture, having various heterogeneous systems operating individually, and restructured it into a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), distributed platform for further integrity and enhancements of sample collections, testing, diagnoses, evaluations, treatments or follow-up services, screening database management, as well as collaboration, communication among hospitals; decision supports and improving screening accuracy over the Taiwan neonatal systems are also addressed. In addition, the new system not only integrates the newborn screening procedures among phlebotomy clinics, referral hospitals, as well as the newborn screening center in Taiwan, but also introduces new models of screening procedures for the associated, medical practitioners. Furthermore, it reduces the burden of manual operations, especially the reporting services, those were heavily dependent upon previously. The new system can accelerate the whole procedures effectively and efficiently. It improves the accuracy and the reliability of the screening by ensuring the quality control during the processing as well.

Motivation and reward systems in service provision: exploring motivators for people providing engineering services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kreye, Melanie; Nandrup-Bus, Troels

2015-01-01

It is becoming a distinctive feature for manufacturing firms to compete strategically through service provision. In relation to reward systems the aim of this thesis is to investigate what motivates employees of servitized manufacturing firms when providing engineering services and why. Through...... quantitative and qualitative data collection with an international company within the European healthcare sector, the findings show that key motivating factors were to “delight” the customer and being able to take responsibility and accountability for ones work. Service employees were found to feel proud...