Perturbing event logs to identify cost reduction opportunities: a genetic algorithm-based approach

Organisations are constantly seeking new ways to improve operational efficiencies. This research study investigates a novel way to identify potential efficiency gains in business operations by observing how they are carried out in the past and then exploring better ways of executing them by taking into account trade-offs between time, cost and resource utilisation. This paper demonstrates how they can be incorporated in the assessment of alternative process execution scenarios by making use of a cost environment. A genetic algorithm-based approach is proposed to explore and assess alternative process execution scenarios, where the objective function is represented by a comprehensive cost structure that captures different process dimensions. Experiments conducted with different variants of the genetic algorithm evaluate the approach's feasibility. The findings demonstrate that a genetic algorithm-based approach is able to make use of cost reduction as a way to identify improved execution scenarios in terms of reduced case durations and increased resource utilisation. The ultimate aim is to utilise cost-related insights gained from such improved scenarios to put forward recommendations for reducing process-related cost within organisations.

Steady state genuine multipartite entanglement in harmonic oscillator ensembles with a common environment

Steady state entanglement in ensembles of harmonic oscillators with a common squeezed reservoir is studied. Under certain conditions the ensemble features genuine multipartite entanglement in the steady state. Several analytic results regarding the bipartite and multipartite entanglement properties of the system are derived. We also discuss a possible experimental implementation which may exhibit steady state genuine multipartite entanglement.

Domain-specific application analysis for customized instruction identification

With the increasing importance of Application Domain Specific Processor (ADSP) design, a significant challenge is to identify special-purpose operations for implementation as a customized instruction. While many methodologies have been proposed for this purpose, they all work for a single algorithm chosen from the target application domain. Such algorithm-specific approaches are not suitable for designing instruction sets applicable to a whole family of related algorithms. For an entire range of related algorithms, this paper develops a methodology for identifying compound operations, as a basis for designing “domain-specific” Instruction Set Architectures (ISAs) that can efficiently run most of the algorithms in a given domain. Our methodology combines three different static analysis techniques to identify instruction sequences common to several related algorithms: identification of (non-branching) instruction sequences that occur commonly across the algorithms; identification of instruction sequences nested within iterative constructs that are thus executed frequently; and identification of commonly-occurring instruction sequences that span basic blocks. Choosing different combinations of these results enables us to design domain-specific special operations with different desired characteristics, such as performance or suitability as a library function. To demonstrate our approach, case studies are carried out for a family of thirteen string matching algorithms. Finally, the validity of our static analysis results is confirmed through independent dynamic analysis experiments and performance improvement measurements.

A random key genetic algorithm for live migration of multiple virtual machines in data centers

Live migration of multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) has become an integral management activity in data centers for power saving, load balancing and system maintenance. While state-of-the-art live migration techniques focus on the improvement of migration performance of an independent single VM, only a little has been investigated to the case of live migration of multiple interacting VMs. Live migration is mostly influenced by the network bandwidth and arbitrarily migrating a VM which has data inter-dependencies with other VMs may increase the bandwidth consumption and adversely affect the performances of subsequent migrations. In this paper, we propose a Random Key Genetic Algorithm (RKGA) that efficiently schedules the migration of a given set of VMs accounting both inter-VM dependency and data center communication network. The experimental results show that the RKGA can schedule the migration of multiple VMs with significantly shorter total migration time and total downtime compared to a heuristic algorithm.

A multicenter study on chronic cough in children : burden and etiologies based on a standardized management pathway

Background While the burden of chronic cough in children has been documented, etiologic factors across multiple settings and age have not been described. In children with chronic cough, we aimed (1) to evaluate the burden and etiologies using a standard management pathway in various settings, and (2) to determine the influence of age and setting on disease burden and etiologies and etiology on disease burden. We hypothesized that the etiology, but not the burden, of chronic cough in children is dependent on the clinical setting and age. Methods From five major hospitals and three rural-remote clinics, 346 children (mean age 4.5 years) newly referred with chronic cough (> 4 weeks) were prospectively managed in accordance with an evidence-based cough algorithm. We used a priori definitions, timeframes, and validated outcome measures (parent-proxy cough-specific quality of life [PC-QOL], a generic QOL [pediatric quality of life (PedsQL)], and cough diary). Results The burden of chronic cough (PC-QOL, cough duration) significantly differed between settings (P = .014, 0.021, respectively), but was not influenced by age or etiology. PC-QOL and PedsQL did not correlate with age. The frequency of etiologies was significantly different in dissimilar settings (P = .0001); 17.6% of children had a serious underlying diagnosis (bronchiectasis, aspiration, cystic fibrosis). Except for protracted bacterial bronchitis, the frequency of other common diagnoses (asthma, bronchiectasis, resolved without specific-diagnosis) was similar across age categories. Conclusions The high burden of cough is independent of children’s age and etiology but dependent on clinical setting. Irrespective of setting and age, children with chronic cough should be carefully evaluated and child-specific evidence-based algorithms used.

The game of clones and the Australia tax : divergent views about copyright business models and the willingness of Australian consumers to infringe

It is often said that Australia is a world leader in rates of copyright infringement for entertainment goods. In 2012, the hit television show, Game of Thrones, was the most downloaded television show over bitorrent, and estimates suggest that Australians accounted for a plurality of nearly 10% of the 3-4 million downloads each week. The season finale of 2013 was downloaded over a million times within 24 hours of its release, and again Australians were the largest block of illicit downloaders over BitTorrent, despite our relatively small population. This trend has led the former US Ambassador to Australia to implore Australians to stop 'stealing' digital content, and rightsholders to push for increasing sanctions on copyright infringers. The Australian Government is looking to respond by requiring Internet Service Providers to issue warnings and potentially punish consumers who are alleged by industry groups to have infringed copyright. This is the logical next step in deterring infringement, given that the operators of infringing networks (like The Pirate Bay, for example) are out of regulatory reach. This steady ratcheting up of the strength of copyright, however, comes at a significant cost to user privacy and autonomy, and while the decentralisation of enforcement reduces costs, it also reduces the due process safeguards provided by the judicial process. This article presents qualitative evidence that substantiates a common intuition: one of the major reasons that Australians seek out illicit downloads of content like Game of Thrones in such numbers is that it is more difficult to access legitimately in Australia. The geographically segmented way in which copyright is exploited at an international level has given rise to a ‘tyranny of digital distance’, where Australians have less access to copyright goods than consumers in other countries. Compared to consumers in the US and the EU, Australians pay more for digital goods, have less choice in distribution channels, are exposed to substantial delays in access, and are sometimes denied access completely. In this article we focus our analysis on premium film and television offerings, like Game of Thrones, and through semi-structured interviews, explore how choices in distribution impact on the willingness of Australian consumers to seek out infringing copies of copyright material. Game of Thrones provides an excellent case study through which to frame this analysis: it is both one of the least legally accessible television offerings and one of the most downloaded through filesharing networks of recent times. Our analysis shows that at the same time as rightsholder groups, particularly in the film and television industries, are lobbying for stronger laws to counter illicit distribution, the business practices of their member organisations are counter-productively increasing incentives for consumers to infringe. The lack of accessibility and high prices of copyright goods in Australia leads to substantial economic waste. The unmet consumer demand means that Australian consumers are harmed by lower access to information and entertainment goods than consumers in other jurisdictions. The higher rates of infringement that fulfils some of this unmet demand increases enforcement costs for copyright owners and imposes burdens either on our judicial system or on private entities – like ISPs – who may be tasked with enforcing the rights of third parties. Most worryingly, the lack of convenient and cheap legitimate digital distribution channels risks undermining public support for copyright law. Our research shows that consumers blame rightsholders for failing to meet market demand, and this encourages a social norm that infringing copyright, while illegal, is not morally wrongful. The implications are as simple as they are profound: Australia should not take steps to increase the strength of copyright law at this time. The interests of the public and those of rightsholders align better when there is effective competition in distribution channels and consumers can legitimately get access to content. While foreign rightsholders are seeking enhanced protection for their interests, increasing enforcement is likely to increase their ability to engage in lucrative geographical price-discrimination, particularly for premium content. This is only likely to increase the degree to which Australian consumers feel that their interests are not being met and, consequently, to further undermine the legitimacy of copyright law. If consumers are to respect copyright law, increasing sanctions for infringement without enhancing access and competition in legitimate distribution channels could be dangerously counter-productive. We suggest that rightsholders’ best strategy for addressing infringement in Australia at this time is to ensure that Australians can access copyright goods in a timely, affordable, convenient, and fair lawful manner.

Real or imagined? A study exploring the existence of common method variance effects in road safety research

Common method variance (CMV) has received little attention within the field of road safety research despite a heavy reliance on self-report data. Two surveys were completed by 214 motorists over a two-month period, allowing associations between social desirability and key road safety variables and relationships between scales across the two survey waves to be examined. Social desirability was found to have a strong negative correlation with the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) sub-scales as well as age, but not with crashes and offences. Drivers who scored higher on the social desirability scale were also less likely to report aberrant driving behaviours as measured by the DBQ. Controlling for social desirability did not substantially alter the predictive relationship between the DBQ and the crash and offences variables. The strength of the correlations within and between the two waves were also compared with the results strongly suggesting that effects associated with CMV were present. Identification of CMV would be enhanced by the replication of this study with a larger sample size and comparing self-report data with official sources.

Spatial analysis of risk factors for transmission of the Barmah forest virus in Queensland, Australia

Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease is the second most common mosquito-borne disease in Australia but few data are available on the risk factors. We assessed the impact of spatial climatic, socioeconomic and ecological factors on the transmission of BFV disease in Queensland, Australia, using spatial regression. All our analyses indicate that spatial lag models provide a superior fit to the data compared to spatial error and ordinary least square models. The residuals of the spatial lag models were found to be uncorrelated, indicating that the models adequately account for spatial and temporal autocorrelation. Our results revealed that minimum temperature, distance from coast and low tide were negatively and rainfall was positively associated with BFV disease in coastal areas, whereas minimum temperature and high tide were negatively and rainfall was positively associated with BFV disease (all P-value.

Chaperone-usher fimbriae of Escherichia coli

Chaperone-usher (CU) fimbriae are adhesive surface organelles common to many Gram-negative bacteria. Escherichia coli genomes contain a large variety of characterised and putative CU fimbrial operons, however, the classification and annotation of individual loci remains problematic. Here we describe a classification model based on usher phylogeny and genomic locus position to categorise the CU fimbrial types of E. coli. Using the BLASTp algorithm, an iterative usher protein search was performed to identify CU fimbrial operons from 35 E. coli (and one Escherichia fergusonnii) genomes representing different pathogenic and phylogenic lineages, as well as 132 Escherichia spp. plasmids. A total of 458 CU fimbrial operons were identified, which represent 38 distinct fimbrial types based on genomic locus position and usher phylogeny. The majority of fimbrial operon types occupied a specific locus position on the E. coli chromosome; exceptions were associated with mobile genetic elements. A group of core-associated E. coli CU fimbriae were defined and include the Type 1, Yad, Yeh, Yfc, Mat, F9 and Ybg fimbriae. These genes were present as intact or disrupted operons at the same genetic locus in almost all genomes examined. Evaluation of the distribution and prevalence of CU fimbrial types among different pathogenic and phylogenic groups provides an overview of group specific fimbrial profiles and insight into the ancestry and evolution of CU fimbriae in E. coli.

Fine-mapping the HOXB region detects common variants tagging a rare coding allele : evidence for synthetic association in prostate cancer

The HOXB13 gene has been implicated in prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility. We performed a high resolution fine-mapping analysis to comprehensively evaluate the association between common genetic variation across the HOXB genetic locus at 17q21 and PrCa risk. This involved genotyping 700 SNPs using a custom Illumina iSelect array (iCOGS) followed by imputation of 3195 SNPs in 20,440 PrCa cases and 21,469 controls in The PRACTICAL consortium. We identified a cluster of highly correlated common variants situated within or closely upstream of HOXB13 that were significantly associated with PrCa risk, described by rs117576373 (OR 1.30, P = 2.62×10(-14)). Additional genotyping, conditional regression and haplotype analyses indicated that the newly identified common variants tag a rare, partially correlated coding variant in the HOXB13 gene (G84E, rs138213197), which has been identified recently as a moderate penetrance PrCa susceptibility allele. The potential for GWAS associations detected through common SNPs to be driven by rare causal variants with higher relative risks has long been proposed; however, to our knowledge this is the first experimental evidence for this phenomenon of synthetic association contributing to cancer susceptibility.

A pseudo-marginal sequential Monte Carlo algorithm for random effects models in Bayesian sequential design

A computationally efficient sequential Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed for the sequential design of experiments for the collection of block data described by mixed effects models. The difficulty in applying a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm in such settings is the need to evaluate the observed data likelihood, which is typically intractable for all but linear Gaussian models. To overcome this difficulty, we propose to unbiasedly estimate the likelihood, and perform inference and make decisions based on an exact-approximate algorithm. Two estimates are proposed: using Quasi Monte Carlo methods and using the Laplace approximation with importance sampling. Both of these approaches can be computationally expensive, so we propose exploiting parallel computational architectures to ensure designs can be derived in a timely manner. We also extend our approach to allow for model uncertainty. This research is motivated by important pharmacological studies related to the treatment of critically ill patients.

Creating a common approach to safety management through structured training development

The successful management of workplace safety has many benefits for employees, employers and the community. Similar to other areas of job performance, safety performance can be enhanced through appropriate and well-designed training. The foundation of the development of effective training is a thorough training needs analysis (TNA). Currently, the application of psychometrically valid TNA practices for the management of workplace safety is an under-researched topic and limited guidance is available for implementing appropriate strategies. To address this gap in the literature, this chapter will provide an overview of TNA practices, including the purpose and benefits associated with implementing the systematic procedure. A case study will then be presented to illustrate how the TNA process was successfully applied to investigate the training needs of Australasian rail incident investigators to achieve an industry-approved national training package. Recommendations will be made to assist practitioners with implementing TNA practices with the goal of enhancing workplace safety management through targeted workforce development.