Representations and evolutionary operators for the scheduling of pump operations in water distribution networks.

Reducing the energy consumption of water distribution networks has never had more significance. The greatest energy savings can be obtained by carefully scheduling the operations of pumps. Schedules can be defined either implicitly, in terms of other elements of the network such as tank levels, or explicitly by specifying the time during which each pump is on/off. The traditional representation of explicit schedules is a string of binary values with each bit representing pump on/off status during a particular time interval. In this paper, we formally define and analyze two new explicit representations based on time-controlled triggers, where the maximum number of pump switches is established beforehand and the schedule may contain less switches than the maximum. In these representations, a pump schedule is divided into a series of integers with each integer representing the number of hours for which a pump is active/inactive. This reduces the number of potential schedules compared to the binary representation, and allows the algorithm to operate on the feasible region of the search space. We propose evolutionary operators for these two new representations. The new representations and their corresponding operations are compared with the two most-used representations in pump scheduling, namely, binary representation and level-controlled triggers. A detailed statistical analysis of the results indicates which parameters have the greatest effect on the performance of evolutionary algorithms. The empirical results show that an evolutionary algorithm using the proposed representations improves over the results obtained by a recent state-of-the-art Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for pump scheduling using level-controlled triggers.

Enhancing the link between business and operations strategy.

This paper reprots on the use of banchmarking to improve the links between business and operations strategies. The use of benchmarking as a toll to facilitate improvements in these crucial links is examined. The existing literature on process benchmarking is used to from a structured questionnaire to apply to six case studies of major manuifacturing companies. Four of these case studies are presented in this paper to highlight the use of benchmarking in this application. Initial researh results are presented drawing upon the critical success factors indentified both in the literature and on the case results. Recommendations for further work are outlined

Benchmarking the business and operations strategy link.

This paper reports on the use of benchmarking to improve the links between business and operations strategies. The use of benchmarking as a tool to facilitate improvement in these crucial links is examined. The existing literature on process benchmarking is used to form a structured questionnaire to apply to six case studies of major maunfacturing companies. Four of these case studies are presented drawing upon the critical success factors identified both in the literature and on the case results. Recommendations for further work are outlined.

The Legal Base for Human Rights Field Operations

Odello, Marco, The Legal Base for Human Rights Field Operations, In: 'The Human Rights Field Operation: Law, Theory and Practice', O'Flaherty, M. (eds), Ashgate Publishing, pp.47-67, 2007. RAE2008

Hinduism and Christianity in Orissa: containing a brief description of the country, religion, manners and customs, of the Hindus, and an account of the operations of the American Freewill Baptist Mission in northern Orissa ... By O.R. Bacheler ...

http://www.archive.org/details/hinduismandchris00bachuoft

Using set operations to deal with the frame problem

This paper presents a simple approach to the so-called frame problem based on some ordinary set operations, which does not require non-monotonic reasoning. Following the notion of the situation calculus, we shall represent a state of the world as a set of fluents, where a fluent is simply a Boolean-valued property whose truth-value is dependent on the time. High-level causal laws are characterised in terms of relationships between actions and the involved world states. An effect completion axiom is imposed on each causal law, which guarantees that all the fluents that can be affected by the performance of the corresponding action are always totally governed. It is shown that, compared with other techniques, such a set operation based approach provides a simpler and more effective treatment to the frame problem.

Assessing the suitability of ship design for human factors issues associated with evacuation and normal operations

Evaluating ship layout for human factors (HF) issues using simulation software such as maritimeEXODUS can be a long and complex process. The analysis requires the identification of relevant evaluation scenarios; encompassing evacuation and normal operations; the development of appropriate measures which can be used to gauge the performance of crew and vessel and finally; the interpretation of considerable simulation data. In this paper we present a systematic and transparent methodology for assessing the HF performance of ship design which is both discriminating and diagnostic. The methodology is demonstrated using two variants of a hypothetical naval ship.

Investigation of precision grinding process for production of silicon diaphragms

The application of precision grinding for the formation of a silicon diaphragm is investigated. The test structures involved 2-6 mm diam diaphragms with thicknesses in the range of 25-150 //m. When grinding is performed without supporting the diaphragm, bending occurs due to nonuniform removal of the silicon material over the diaphragm region. The magnitude of bending depends on the µNal thickness of the diaphragm. The results demonstrate that the use of a porous silicon support can significantly reduce the amount of bending, by a factor of up to 300 in the case of 50 m thick diaphragms. The use of silicon on insulator (SOI) technology can also suppress or eliminate bending although this may be a less economical process. Stress measurements in the diaphragms were performed using x-ray and Raman spectroscopies. The results show stress of the order of 1 X107-! X108 Pa in unsupported and supported by porous silicon diaphragms while SOI technology provides stress-free diaphragms. Results obtained from finite element method analysis to determine deterioration in the performance of a 6 mm diaphragm due to bending are presented. These results show a 10% reduction in performance for a 75 µm thick diaphragm with bending amplitude of 30 fim, but negligible reduction if the bending is reduced to

Ascertainment of cause-specific mortality in COPD - operations of the TORCH clinical endpoint Committee

Background: TORCH (Towards a Revolution in COPD Health) is an international multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial of inhaled fluticasone propionate/salmeterol combination treatment and its monotherapy components for maintenance treatment of moderately to severely impaired patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The primary outcome is all-cause mortality. Cause-specific mortality and deaths related to COPD are additional outcome measures, but systematic methods for ascertainment of these outcomes have not previously been described. Methods: A Clinical Endpoint Committee (CEC) was tasked with categorising the cause of death and the relationship of deaths to COPD in a systematic, unbiased and independent manner. The key elements of the operation of the committee were the use of predefined principles of operation and definitions of cause of death and COPD-relatedness; the independent review of cases by all members with development of a consensus opinion; and a substantial infrastructure to collect medical information. Results: 911 deaths were reviewed and consensus was reached in all. Cause-specific mortality was: cardiovascular 27%, respiratory 35%, cancer 21%, other 10% and unknown 8%. 40% of deaths were definitely or probably related to COPD. Adjudications were identical in 83% of blindly re-adjudicated cases ( = 0.80). COPD-relatedness was reproduced 84% of the time ( = 0.73). The CEC adjudication was equivalent to the primary cause of death recorded by the site investigator in 52% of cases. Conclusion: A CEC can provide standardised, reliable and informative adjudication of COPD mortality that provides information which frequently differs from data collected from assessment by site investigators.

Neural modelling, control and optimisation of an industrial grinding process

This paper describes the development of neural model-based control strategies for the optimisation of an industrial aluminium substrate disk grinding process. The grindstone removal rate varies considerably over a stone life and is a highly nonlinear function of process variables. Using historical grindstone performance data, a NARX-based neural network model is developed. This model is then used to implement a direct inverse controller and an internal model controller based on the process settings and previous removal rates. Preliminary plant investigations show that thickness defects can be reduced by 50% or more, compared to other schemes employed. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.