Organization and Coordination of the Highway Planning Function in Iowa, HR-150, 1971

The Engineering Research Institute at Iowa State University studied the organization and procedures for highway planning by all levels of government and the coordination among various state agencies and local governments in Iowa. Study information was derived from interviews, questionnaires, and a review of the literature. Representatives from state transportation or highway organizations in all states responded to questionnaires. Additionally, selected upper and intermediate level personnel from highway organizations in seven other states were interviewed and a visit was made to one state transportation department. Within Iowa, employees were interviewed in the Highway Commission, Office for Planning and Programming, Development Commission, Commerce Commission, Conservation Commission, and Highway Patrol. Nearly 600 officials of local governments in Iowa contributed factual data and opinions through questionnaires and interviews. Private citizens and consultants also provided input to the investigation through their responses to questionnaires. Twelve recommendations to improve highway planning in Iowa were formulated as a result of this study.

Implementation of an Integrated Activity-Based Costing in a Holistic Database Management System and its Implications for Operations Management

Diplomityössä on tutkittu reaaliaikaisen toimintolaskennan toteuttamista suomalaisen lasersiruja valmistavan PK-yrityksen tietojärjestelmään. Lisäksi on tarkasteltu toimintolaskennan vaikutuksia operatiiviseen toimintaan sekä toimintojen johtamiseen. Työn kirjallisuusosassa on käsitelty kirjallisuuslähteiden perusteella toimintolaskennan teorioita, laskentamenetelmiä sekä teknisessä toteutuksessa käytettyjä teknologioita. Työn toteutusosassa suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin WWW-pohjainen toimintolaskentajärjestelmä case-yrityksen kustannuslaskennan sekä taloushallinnon avuksi. Työkalu integroitiin osaksi yrityksen toiminnanohjaus- sekä valmistuksenohjausjärjestelmää. Perinteisiin toimintolaskentamallien tiedonkeruujärjestelmiin verrattuna case-yrityksessä syötteet toimintolaskentajärjestelmälle tulevat reaaliaikaisesti osana suurempaa tietojärjestelmäintegraatiota.Diplomityö pyrkii luomaan suhteen toimintolaskennan vaatimusten ja tietokantajärjestelmien välille. Toimintolaskentajärjestelmää yritys voi hyödyntää esimerkiksi tuotteiden hinnoittelussa ja kustannuslaskennassa näkemällä tuotteisiin liittyviä kustannuksia eri näkökulmista. Päätelmiä voidaan tehdä tarkkaan kustannusinformaatioon perustuen sekä määrittää järjestelmän tuottaman datan perusteella, onko tietyn projektin, asiakkuuden tai tuotteen kehittäminen taloudellisesti kannattavaa.

La integración del ferrocarril de alta velocidad en el medio urbano. El caso de Segovia-Guiomar

La llegada del tren de alta velocidad genera oportunidades de dinamización que deben de ser ante todo concretadas a escala local. Los lugares suelen reaccionar desplegando medidas de planificación y gestión para garantizar la mejor integración de la nueva infraestructura, procurar su coherencia con el modelo territorial y el mejor aprovechamiento de la accesibilidad que genera el nuevo tren. En este artículo se estudian las medidas desarrolladas en Segovia a raíz de la implantación del tren de alta velocidad con una estación localizada en la periferia, por lo que tuvieron que desplegarse un buen número de acciones de planificación territorial y gestión de la movilidad. A través del planeamiento municipal se trata de integrar la estación y su entorno al conjunto urbano, con el desarrollo de suelo urbanizable y nueva infraestructura viaria. La gestión de la movilidad pasa inicialmente por la articulación de la estación con el centro urbano a través de servicios de autobuses coordinados con los horarios de los trenes.

Recommendations for the use of multimodal monitoring in the neurointensive care unit.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Multimodal monitoring (MMM) is routinely applied in neurointensive care. Unfortunately, there is no robust evidence on which MMM-derived physiologic variables are the most clinically relevant, how and when they should be monitored, and whether MMM impacts outcome. The complexity is even higher because once the data are continuously collected, interpretation and integration of these complex physiologic events into targeted individualized care is still embryonic. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent clinical investigation mainly focused on intracranial pressure, perfusion of the brain, and oxygen availability along with electrophysiology. Moreover, a series of articles reviewing the available evidence on all the MMM tools, giving practical recommendations for bedside MMM, has been published, along with other consensus documents on the role of neuromonitoring and electroencephalography in this setting. SUMMARY: MMM allows comprehensive exploration of the complex pathophysiology of acute brain damage and, depending on the different configuration of the pathological condition we are treating, the application of targeted individualized care. Unfortunately, we still lack robust evidence on how to better integrate MMM-derived information at the bedside to improve patient management. Advanced informatics is promising and may provide us a supportive tool to interpret physiologic events and guide pathophysiological-based therapeutic decisions.

Correlation between charge transport and electroluminescence properties of Si-rich oxide/nitride/oxide-based light emitting capacitors.

The electrical and electroluminescence (EL) properties at room and high temperatures of oxide/ nitride/oxide (ONO)-based light emitting capacitors are studied. The ONO multidielectric layer is enriched with silicon by means of ion implantation. The exceeding silicon distribution follows a Gaussian profile with a maximum of 19%, centered close to the lower oxide/nitride interface. The electrical measurements performed at room and high temperatures allowed to unambiguously identify variable range hopping (VRH) as the dominant electrical conduction mechanism at low voltages, whereas at moderate and high voltages, a hybrid conduction formed by means of variable range hopping and space charge-limited current enhanced by Poole-Frenkel effect predominates. The EL spectra at different temperatures are also recorded, and the correlation between charge transport mechanisms and EL properties is discussed.

The Spatial Distribution of Spanish Transport Infrastructure between 1860 and 1930

The origin of Spanish regional economic divergence can be traced back at least until the seventeenth century, although its full definition took place during industrialisation. Historians have often included uneven regional infrastructure endowments among the factors that explain divergence among Spanish regions, although no systematic analysis of the spatial distribution of Spanish infrastructure and its determinants has been carried out so far. This paper aims at filling that gap, by offering a description of the regional distribution of the main Spanish transport infrastructure between the middle of the nineteenth century and the Civil War. In addition, it estimates a panel data model to search into the main reasons that explain the differences among the Spanish regional endowments of railways and roads during that period. The outcomes of that analysis indicate that both institutional factors and the physical characteristics of each area had a strong influence on the distribution of transport infrastructure among the Spanish regions.

Analyse de réseau piéton et gestion scolaire: sinuosité, centricité et transport optimal régularisé

Que ce soit d'un point de vue, urbanistique, social, ou encore de la gouvernance, l'évolution des villes est un défi majeur de nos sociétés contemporaines. En offrant la possibilité d'analyser des configurations spatiales et sociales existantes ou en tentant de simuler celles à venir, les systèmes d'information géographique sont devenus incontournables dans la gestion et dans la planification urbaine. En cinq ans la population de la ville de Lausanne est passée de 134'700 à 140'570 habitants, alors que les effectifs de l'école publique ont crû de 12'200 à 13'500 élèves. Cet accroissement démographique associé à un vaste processus d'harmonisation de la scolarité obligatoire en Suisse ont amené le Service des écoles à mettre en place et à développer en collaboration avec l'université de Lausanne des solutions SIG à même de répondre à différentes problématiques spatiales. Établies en 1989, les limites des établissements scolaires (bassins de recrutement) ont dû être redéfinies afin de les réadapter aux réalités d'un paysage urbain et politique en pleine mutation. Dans un contexte de mobilité et de durabilité, un système d'attribution de subventions pour les transports publics basé sur la distance domicile-école et sur l'âge des écoliers, a été conçu. La réalisation de ces projets a nécessité la construction de bases de données géographiques ainsi que l'élaboration de nouvelles méthodes d'analyses exposées dans ce travail. Cette thèse s'est ainsi faite selon une dialectique permanente entre recherches théoriques et nécessités pratiques. La première partie de ce travail porte sur l'analyse du réseau piéton de la ville. La morphologie du réseau est investiguée au travers d'approches multi-échelles du concept de centralité. La première conception, nommée sinuo-centralité ("straightness centrality"), stipule qu'être central c'est être relié aux autres en ligne droite. La deuxième, sans doute plus intuitive, est intitulée centricité ("closeness centrality") et exprime le fait qu'être central c'est être proche des autres (fig. 1, II). Les méthodes développées ont pour but d'évaluer la connectivité et la marchabilité du réseau, tout en suggérant de possibles améliorations (création de raccourcis piétons). Le troisième et dernier volet théorique expose et développe un algorithme de transport optimal régularisé. En minimisant la distance domicile-école et en respectant la taille des écoles, l'algorithme permet de réaliser des scénarios d'enclassement. L'implémentation des multiplicateurs de Lagrange offre une visualisation du "coût spatial" des infrastructures scolaires et des lieux de résidence des écoliers. La deuxième partie de cette thèse retrace les aspects principaux de trois projets réalisés dans le cadre de la gestion scolaire. À savoir : la conception d'un système d'attribution de subventions pour les transports publics, la redéfinition de la carte scolaire, ou encore la simulation des flux d'élèves se rendant à l'école à pied. *** May it be from an urbanistic, a social or from a governance point of view, the evolution of cities is a major challenge in our contemporary societies. By giving the opportunity to analyse spatial and social configurations or attempting to simulate future ones, geographic information systems cannot be overlooked in urban planning and management. In five years, the population of the city of Lausanne has grown from 134'700 to 140'570 inhabitants while the numbers in public schools have increased from 12'200 to 13'500 students. Associated to a considerable harmonisation process of compulsory schooling in Switzerland, this demographic rise has driven schooling services, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne, to set up and develop GIS capable of tackling various spatial issues. Established in 1989, the school districts had to be altered so that they might fit the reality of a continuously changing urban and political landscape. In a context of mobility and durability, an attribution system for public transport subventions based on the distance between residence and school and on the age of the students was designed. The implementation of these projects required the built of geographical databases as well as the elaboration of new analysis methods exposed in this thesis. The first part of this work focuses on the analysis of the city's pedestrian network. Its morphology is investigated through multi-scale approaches of the concept of centrality. The first conception, named the straightness centrality, stipulates that being central is being connected to the others in a straight line. The second, undoubtedly more intuitive, is called closeness centrality and expresses the fact that being central is being close to the others. The goal of the methods developed is to evaluate the connectivity and walkability of the network along with suggesting possible improvements (creation of pedestrian shortcuts).The third and final theoretical section exposes and develops an algorithm of regularised optimal transport. By minimising home to school distances and by respecting school capacity, the algorithm enables the production of student allocation scheme. The implementation of the Lagrange multipliers offers a visualisation of the spatial cost associated to the schooling infrastructures and to the student home locations. The second part of this thesis recounts the principal aspects of three projects fulfilled in the context of school management. It focuses namely on the built of an attribution system for public transport subventions, a school redistricting process and on simulating student pedestrian flows.

Automatic meter reading – benefits and applications

In liberalized electricity markets, which have taken place in many countries over the world, the electricity distribution companies operate in the competitive conditions. Therefore, accurate information about the customers’ energy consumption plays an essential role for the budget keeping of the distribution company and for correct planning and operation of the distribution network. This master’s thesis is focused on the description of the possible benefits for the electric utilities and residential customers from the automatic meter reading system usage. Major benefits of the AMR, illustrated in the thesis, are distribution network management, power quality monitoring, load modelling, and detection of the illegal usage of the electricity. By the example of the power system state estimation, it was illustrated that even the partial installation of the AMR in the customer side leads to more accurate data about the voltage and power levels in the whole network. The thesis also contains the description of the present situation of the AMR integration in Russia.

Assessing Organizational Cultural Fit prior to Integration in the M&A Process

Yritysostojen määrä on historiallisen suuri 2000-luvulla, vaikka melkein puolet niistä epäonnistuu. Aineettomilla tekijöillä, kuten organisaatiokulttuureilla, on keskeinen rooli yritysostojen onnistumisissa. Myös case yritys on aktiivinen yritysostoissa ja haluaa arvioida integraatioprosessinsa tehokkuutta. Siten diplomityön tarkoituksena on luoda työkalu organisaatiokulttuurien yhteensopivuuden arvioimiseksi, jotta ostopäätöksentekoa sekä integraation suunnittelua voitaisiin tukea paremmin yrityksessä. Diplomityö vastaakin kysymyksiin, kuten miten arvioida kulttuurista yhteensopivuutta ennen integraatiota integraatioprosessin parantamiseksi sekä mitkä ovat olleet kaikkein ongelmallisimmat ja toisaalta kaikkein menestyksekkäimmät kulttuuritekijät tutkitussa integraatiossa. Kulttuurisen yhteensopivuuden arviointi tulisi nähdä prosessina osana yrityskauppaa. Prosessin tulisi alkaa kulttuurisen integraation tavoitteiden määrittämisellä sekä organisaatiokulttuurin käsitteen ymmärtämisellä. Kulttuurianalyysi tulisi suorittaa työpajan avulla. Sen tulisi käsitellä ainakin yhdeksän kulttuurin osa-aluetta: innovatiivisuus, päätöksenteko, ihmissuuntautuneisuus, kommunikaatio, kontrolli, asiakassuuntautuneisuus, ajanhallinta, identifikaatio, sekä kollektivismi. Lisäksi kuhunkin dimensioon liittyvään kysymykseen tulisi vastata pisteillä yhdestä viiteen, jolloin voidaan piirtää kulttuurisen yhteensopivuuden kuvio. Tämän jälkeen johdon tulisi keskustella tuloksista vielä kerran tarkemmin ja lopulta koota tulokset kirjalliseksi raportiksi. Tutkitussa integraatiossa parhaiten integraatiota tukivat ihmissuuntautuneisuus sekä ajanhallinta (työn ja vapaa-ajan välinen tasapaino sekä tulevaisuus-suuntautuneisuus). Haasteellisimmat kulttuuritekijät koskivat päätöksentekoa, kommunikaatiota ja kontrollia, jotka vaikuttavat olevan tyypillisiä ongelmia ison yrityksen ostaessa pienemmän yrityksen.

The us subprime crisis and stock market integration: evidence from the BRICS

The aim of this study is to examine the level of stock market co-movement in the BRICS countries and three major industrialized countries (Japan, UK and USA). While analyzing the interdependence and integration of markets, two subsets are examined: before (2000 – 2007) and during the global financial crisis (2007-2011). Generally, interdependence across markets is likely to increase during a highly volatile period. This is problematic because if it were true, the main benefit of international diversification would be reduced at times when it is most needed. The results reveal the dominant role of the US financial markets over the examined time period. Empirical studies of this research paper indicate that cross-market linkages have become slightly stronger during the ongoing subprime crisis than before crisis. However, results also show that an investor may obtain some international diversification benefits by investing especially in the BRICS countries despite the fact of unstable economic condition and growing globalization.

Integration of Electronic Commerce and Enterprise Systems

The necessity of EC (Electronic Commerce) and enterprise systems integration is perceived from the integrated nature of enterprise systems. The proven benefits of EC to provide competitive advantages to the organizations force enterprises to adopt and integrate EC with their enterprise systems. Integration is a complex task to facilitate seamless flow of information and data between different systems within and across enterprises. Different systems have different platforms, thus to integrate systems with different platforms and infrastructures, integration technologies, such as middleware, SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture), ESB (Enterprise Service Bus), JCA (J2EE Connector Architecture), and B2B (Business-to-Business) integration standards are required. Huge software vendors, such as Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP suggest various solutions to address EC and enterprise systems integration problems. There are limited numbers of literature about the integration of EC and enterprise systems in detail. Most of the studies in this area have focused on the factors which influence the adoption of EC by enterprise or other studies provide limited information about a specific platform or integration methodology in general. Therefore, this thesis is conducted to cover the technical details of EC and enterprise systems integration and covers both the adoption factors and integration solutions. In this study, many literature was reviewed and different solutions were investigated. Different enterprise integration approaches as well as most popular integration technologies were investigated. Moreover, various methodologies of integrating EC and enterprise systems were studied in detail and different solutions were examined. In this study, the influential factors to adopt EC in enterprises were studied based on previous literature and categorized to technical, social, managerial, financial, and human resource factors. Moreover, integration technologies were categorized based on three levels of integration, which are data, application, and process. In addition, different integration approaches were identified and categorized based on their communication and platform. Also, different EC integration solutions were investigated and categorized based on the identified integration approaches. By considering different aspects of integration, this study is a great asset to the architectures, developers, and system integrators in order to integrate and adopt EC with enterprise systems.

Management of Soft Information in Sales and Operations Planning

With a Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process, a company aims to manage the demand and supply by planning and forecasting. The studied company uses an integrated S&OP process to improve the company's operations. The aim of this thesis is to develop this business process by finding the best possible way to manage the soft information in S&OP, whilst also understanding the importance and types (assumptions, risks and opportunities) of soft information in S&OP. The soft information in S&OP helps to refine future S&OP planning, taking into account the uncertainties that affect the balance of the long-term demand and supply (typically 12-18 months). The literature review was used to create a framework for soft information management process in S&OP. There were not found a concrete way how to manage soft information in the existing literature. In consequence of the poor literature available the Knowledge Management literature was used as the base for the framework creation, which was seen in the very same type of information management like the soft information management is. The framework created a four-stage process to manage soft information in S&OP that included also the required support systems. First phase is collecting and acquiring soft information in S&OP, which include also categorization. The categorization was the cornerstone to identify different requirements that needs to be taken into consideration when managing soft information in S&OP process. The next phase focus on storing data, which purpose is to ensure the soft information is managed in a common system (support system) in a way that the following phase makes it available to users in S&OP who need by help of sharing and applications process. The last phase target is to use the soft information to understand assumptions and thoughts of users behind the numbers in S&OP plans. With this soft management process the support system will have a key role. The support system, like S&OP tool, ensures that soft information is stored in the right places, kept up-to-date and relevancy. The soft information management process in S&OP strives to improve the relevant soft information documenting behind the S&OP plans into the S&OP support system. The process offers an opportunity to individuals to review, comment and evaluate soft information in S&OP made by their own or others. In the case company it was noticed that without a properly documented and distributed soft information in S&OP it was seen to cause mistrust towards the planning.

Defining Sales and Operations Planning Process in an Environmental Management Company

Sales and operations research publications have increased significantly in the last decades. The concept of sales and operations planning (S&OP) has gained increased recognition and has been put forward as the area within Supply Chain Management (SCM). Development of S&OP is based on the need for determining future actions, both for sales and operations, since off-shoring, outsourcing, complex supply chains and extended lead times make challenges for responding to changes in the marketplace when they occur. Order intake of the case company has grown rapidly during the last years. Along with the growth, new challenges considering data management and information flow have arisen due to increasing customer orders. To manage these challenges, case company has implemented S&OP process, though initial process is in early stage and due to this, the process is not managing the increased customer orders adequately. Thesis objective is to explore extensively the S&OP process content of the case company and give further recommendations. Objectives are categorized into six different groups, to clarify the purpose of this thesis. Qualitative research methods used are active participant observation, qualitative interviews, enquiry, education, and a workshop. It is notable that demand planning was felt as cumbersome, so it is typically the biggest challenge in S&OP process. More proactive the sales forecasting can be, more expanded the time horizon of operational planning will turn out. S&OP process is 60 percent change management, 30 percent process development and 10 percent technology. The change management and continuous improvement can sometimes be arduous and set as secondary. It is important that different people are required to improve the process and the process is constantly evaluated. As well as, process governance is substantially in a central role and it has to be managed consciously. Generally, S&OP process was seen important and all the stakeholders were committed to the process. Particular sections were experienced more important than others, depending on the stakeholders’ point of views. Recommendations to objective groups are evaluated by the achievable benefit and resource requirement. The urgent and easily implemented improvement recommendations should be executed firstly. Next steps are to develop more coherent process structure and refine cost awareness. Afterwards demand planning, supply planning, and reporting should be developed more profoundly. For last, information technology system should be implemented to support the process phases.

Systematic mapping study on integration of B2B customers in ERP

Business-to-business terminology is relatively new as a business concept, so is the enterprise resource planning system in information technology. Research, implementation and integration of these two concept has been observed for last two decades in this paper. One of the major success point for growth in business-to-business environment is the availability of internal and partner data. Enterprise resource planning system facilitates storing, analysis of such data and enables different business process automation, forecasting and numerous value creating activity. In order to achieve such functionality for B2B customers, integrating them within ERP is very useful. This paper aims at understanding and suggesting such integration through investigating related documentation of similar integration scenarios, infrastructure, models and architectures. The investigation of the topic of this paper has been made using systematic mapping study of related papers and listing and suggesting necessary ingredients that enables such integration. Furthermore, this paper also suggests possibilities to overcome challenges integration experts might face during the integration phase and opens doors to future research scope in the related fields.

Development and characterization of concentric capillary nebulizer used in inductively coupled plasma analysis /

A simple, low-cost concentric capillary nebulizer (CCN) was developed and evaluated for ICP spectrometry. The CCN could be operated at sample uptake rates of 0.050-1.00 ml min'^ and under oscillating and non-oscillating conditions. Aerosol characteristics for the CCN were studied using a laser Fraunhofter diffraction analyzer. Solvent transport efficiencies and transport rates, detection limits, and short- and long-term stabilities were evaluated for the CCN with a modified cyclonic spray chamber at different sample uptake rates. The Mg II (280.2nm)/l\/lg 1(285.2nm) ratio was used for matrix effect studies. Results were compared to those with conventional nebulizers, a cross-flow nebulizer with a Scott-type spray chamber, a GemCone nebulizer with a cyclonic spray chamber, and a Meinhard TR-30-K3 concentric nebulizer with a cyclonic spray chamber. Transport efficiencies of up to 57% were obtained for the CCN. For the elements tested, short- and long-term precisions and detection limits obtained with the CCN at 0.050-0.500 ml min'^ are similar to, or better than, those obtained on the same instrument using the conventional nebulizers (at 1.0 ml min'^). The depressive and enhancement effects of easily ionizable element Na, sulfuric acid, and dodecylamine surfactant on analyte signals with the CCN are similar to, or better than, those obtained with the conventional nebulizers. However, capillary clog was observed when the sample solution with high dissolved solids was nebulized for more than 40 min. The effects of data acquisition and data processing on detection limits were studied using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry. The study examined the effects of different detection limit approaches, the effects of data integration modes, the effects of regression modes, the effects of the standard concentration range and the number of standards, the effects of sample uptake rate, and the effect of Integration time. All the experiments followed the same protocols. Three detection limit approaches were examined, lUPAC method, the residual standard deviation (RSD), and the signal-to-background ratio and relative standard deviation of the background (SBR-RSDB). The study demonstrated that the different approaches, the integration modes, the regression methods, and the sample uptake rates can have an effect on detection limits. The study also showed that the different approaches give different detection limits and some methods (for example, RSD) are susceptible to the quality of calibration curves. Multicomponents spectral fitting (MSF) gave the best results among these three integration modes, peak height, peak area, and MSF. Weighted least squares method showed the ability to obtain better quality calibration curves. Although an effect of the number of standards on detection limits was not observed, multiple standards are recommended because they provide more reliable calibration curves. An increase of sample uptake rate and integration time could improve detection limits. However, an improvement with increased integration time on detection limits was not observed because the auto integration mode was used.