Moving beyond resistance to restraint minimization : a case study of change management in aged care

Aim: This case study describes a quality initiative to minimize restraint in an Australian residential aged care facility.

Approach: The process of improving practice is examined with reference to the literature on implementation of research into practice and change management. The differences between planned and emergent approaches to change management are discussed. The concepts of resistance and attractors are explored in relation to our experiences of managing the change process in this initiative. The importance of the interpersonal interactions that were involved in facilitating the change process is highlighted.

Implications: Recommendations are offered for dealing with change management processes in clinical environments, particularly the need to move beyond an individual mind-set to a systems-based approach for quality initiatives in residential aged care.

Unleashing the vermin : vectored route-length minimization

We have posed a simple but interesting graph theoretic problem and posited a heuristic solution procedure, which we have christened as Vectored Route-length Minimization (VeRMin). Basically, it constitutes a re-casting of the classical “shortest route” problem in a strictly Euclidean space. We have presented only a heuristic solution process hoping that a formal proof will eventually emerge as the problem receives wider exposure within mathematical circles.

Industrial wastewater minimization

Industrial pollution emitted to the environment has created a drastic damage to the environment. Natural purification processes such as dilution and dispersion are not applicable due to the enormous amounts of discharged wastes, as they exceed the assimilative capacity of the local environment. Concern about the environment by the general public has forced governments to establish effluent standards for industrial wastes and emissions. Increasing numbers of industries each year has exerted pressure on the environment compelling regulators to further tighten the standards. This has led to modification and improvement in the existing end-of-pipe treatment facilities resulting in higher investment as well as operation and maintenance cost, whereas in recent years, implementation of proactive methods of waste minimization is gaining much attention within industrial sectors. Various waste minimization techniques such as improved housekeeping, change in process technology, change in product, change in input materials, recycling of chemical and raw materials, and recovery of byproducts are discussed in detail. A number of successful examples discussed in this paper indicate that substantial benefits can be gained by implementing waste minimization programs.

Comparing kinematic changes between a finger-tapping task and unconstrained finger flexion-extension task in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Repetitive finger tapping is a well-established clinical test for the evaluation of parkinsonian bradykinesia, but few studies have investigated other finger movement modalities. We compared the kinematic changes (movement rate and amplitude) and response to levodopa during a conventional index finger-thumb-tapping task and an unconstrained index finger flexion-extension task performed at maximal voluntary rate (MVR) for 20 s in 11 individuals with levodopa-responsive Parkinson's disease (OFF and ON) and 10 healthy age-matched controls. Between-task comparisons showed that for all conditions, the initial movement rate was greater for the unconstrained flexion-extension task than the tapping task. Movement rate in the OFF state was slower than in controls for both tasks and normalized in the ON state. The movement amplitude was also reduced for both tasks in OFF and increased in the ON state but did not reach control levels. The rate and amplitude of movement declined significantly for both tasks under all conditions (OFF/ON and controls). The time course of rate decline was comparable for both tasks and was similar in OFF/ON and controls, whereas the tapping task was associated with a greater decline in MA, both in controls and ON, but not OFF. The findings indicate that both finger movement tasks show similar kinematic changes during a 20-s sustained MVR, but that movement amplitude is less well sustained during the tapping task than the unconstrained finger movement task. Both movement rate and amplitude improved with levodopa; however, movement rate was more levodopa responsive than amplitude.

Energy minimization in multi-task software-defined sensor networks

Abstract—
After a decade of extensive research on application-specific wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the recent development of information and communication technologies makes it practical to realize the software-defined sensor networks (SDSNs), which are able to adapt to various application requirements and to fully explore the resources of WSNs. A sensor node in SDSN is able to conduct multiple tasks with different sensing targets simultaneously. A given sensing task usually involves multiple sensors to achieve a certain quality-of-sensing, e.g., coverage ratio. It is significant to design an energy-efficient sensor scheduling and management strategy with guaranteed quality-of-sensing for all tasks. To this end, three issues are investigated in this paper: 1) the subset of sensor nodes that shall be activated, i.e., sensor activation, 2) the task that each sensor node shall be assigned, i.e., task mapping, and 3) the sampling rate on a sensor for a target, i.e., sensing scheduling. They are jointly considered and formulated as a mixed-integer with quadratic constraints programming (MIQP) problem, which is then reformulated into a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation with low computation complexity via linearization. To deal with dynamic events such as sensor node participation and departure, during SDSN operations, an efficient online algorithm using local optimization is developed. Simulation results show that our proposed online algorithm approaches the globally optimized network energy efficiency with much lower rescheduling time and control overhead.

Lingo: linearized grassmannian optimization for nuclear norm minimization

As a popular heuristic to the matrix rank minimization problem, nuclear norm minimization attracts intensive research attentions. Matrix factorization based algorithms can reduce the expensive computation cost of SVD for nuclear norm minimization. However, most matrix factorization based algorithms fail to provide the theoretical guarantee for convergence caused by their non-unique factorizations. This paper proposes an efficient and accurate Linearized Grass-mannian Optimization (Lingo) algorithm, which adopts matrix factorization and Grassmann manifold structure to alternatively minimize the subproblems. More specially, linearization strategy makes the auxiliary variables unnecessary and guarantees the close-form solution for low periteration complexity. Lingo then converts linearized objective function into a nuclear norm minimization over Grass-mannian manifold, which could remedy the non-unique of solution for the low-rank matrix factorization. Extensive comparison experiments demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of Lingo algorithm. The global convergence of Lingo is guaranteed with theoretical proof, which also verifies the effectiveness of Lingo.

Loss minimization by the predictor-corrector modified barrier approach

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

GREEN MACHINING ORIENTED TO DIMINISH DENSITY GRADIENT FOR MINIMIZATION of DISTORTION IN ADVANCED CERAMICS

After sintering advanced ceramics, there are invariably distortions, caused in large part by the heterogeneous distribution of density gradients along the compacted piece. To correct distortions, machining is generally used to manufacture pieces within dimensional and geometric tolerances. Hence, narrow material removal limit conditions are applied, which minimize the generation of damage. Another alternative is machining the compacted piece before sintering, called the green ceramic stage, which allows machining without damage to mechanical strength. Since the greatest concentration of density gradients is located in the outer-most layers of the compacted piece, this study investigated the removal of different allowance values by means of green machining. The output variables are distortion after sintering, tool wear, cutting force, and the surface roughness of the green ceramics and the sintered ones. The following results have been noted: less distortion is verified in the sintered piece after 1mm allowance removal; and the higher the tool wear the worse the surface roughness of both green and sintered pieces.

The minimization of open stacks problem: A review of some properties and their use in pre-processing operations

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

A geometric interpretation for transmission real losses minimization through the optimal power flow and its influence on voltage collapse

This work presents an approach for geometric solution of an optimal power flow (OPF) problem for a two bus system (a slack and a PV busses). Additionally, the geometric relationship between the losses minimization and the increase of the reactive margin and, therefore, the maximum loading point, is shown. The algebraic equations for the calculation of the Lagrange multipliers and for the minimum losses value are obtained. These equations are used to validate the results obtained using an OPF program. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.