An Approach for the Railway Multiterritory Dispatching Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 721-739
Author(s):  
Conrado Borraz-Sánchez ◽  
Diego Klabjan ◽  
Alper Uygur

In this research, we address the railway multiterritory dispatch planning (RMTDP) problem. The goal of the RMTDP problem is to find the optimal movement of trains across consecutive dispatch territories, and it is one of the major challenges that decision makers face on a daily basis. It ideally takes into account the correct placement of maintenance windows, remaining capacity of terminals, and availability of train crews, among other critical aspects such as locomotive balance, fueling locations, and inspections. Although these train movement plans are made at the corridor level, which comprises several dispatch territories, when it comes to execution, the meet–pass decisions are made at the individual dispatch territories. This notion causes disruptions and misalignment at the boundaries of dispatch territories. The approach in this paper aims at finding a holistic conflict-free master plan by optimally matching train lineups at territory boundaries and smoothly routing trains through bottlenecks. We propose an efficient solution approach that iteratively constructs a master scheduling plan while minimizing the amount of train delay within a given planning horizon. This is accomplished by designing a time–space network model to identify feasible schedules and developing a mathematical programming–based heuristic to solve the underlying model. A thorough computational study shows the effectiveness of our heuristic approach, as we report reasonable average run times of 3.0 and 6.5 minutes to solve instances of moderate to large size problems, respectively. The results obtained from the algorithm using test snapshots from a Class I railroad company have been shown to assistant chief dispatchers and have received encouraging feedback for applicability.

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
David Fresnais ◽  
Edvin Ingberg ◽  
Elvar Theodorsson ◽  
Jakob O Ström

The pathogenesis of acne vulgaris has only been partially elucidated. Various hormones, especially androgens, are likely to play a role, but results of studies are still inconclusive. The objective of the current study was to investigate whether day to day variation in salivary testosterone correlates with acne in males. Saliva samples were collected for 120 consecutive days from each of the 40 males. Salivary testosterone concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Facial acne lesions were assessed on a daily basis by photography by the participating males. Potential confounders’ (sexual intercourse, masturbation, physical exercise and disease) were also registered every day by the participants. A significant but weak association between salivary testosterone and acne was found (n = 4602, r = 0.031, P = 0.034). Elevated testosterone concentrations were associated with an increase in acne, but when testosterone concentrations were above twice the individual average, acne lesions paradoxically decreased. The current results indicate that daily fluctuations in salivary testosterone levels in males are associated with acne patterns, but the weak correlation suggests that the effect is too small to be of clinical significance. The analysis in the current study was complicated by a large number of days on which the participants had no acne, as well as the seemingly non-monotonic relation between testosterone and acne. This may indicate that the actual relation is stronger than concluded here.


Author(s):  
José Antonio Mateos Martín

El blanqueo de capitales es uno de los fenómenos de mayor impacto social del mundo contemporáneo. Esta repercusión social es debida, en parte, al ruido mediático del que se hacen eco diariamente los medios de comunicación mundial y a la repercusión económica que tiene este fenómeno en las economías mundiales, minando el amplio abanico que va desde las cuentas de un Estado, hasta la moral individual de las personas, o lo que es lo mismo, afectando tanto a aspectos macroeconómicos como a los microeconómicos. Desde que en los años 80, y unido al tráfico de estupefacientes comenzó a considerarse un problema para los Estados, el blanqueo de capitales ha sido tratado de diversas formas. En un principio se le consideró como un daño colateral, sin dotarle de la capacidad destructiva que verdaderamente tiene, siendo en los últimos veinte años cuando se le ha considerado como una verdadera amenaza para el orden económico establecido. A partir de ese momento un enjambre de leyes, resoluciones, órdenes, instrucciones, etc, emanan de los poderes legislativos de los Estados, que viéndose superados, en muchas ocasiones por sus fronteras físicas y por las facilidades de la globalización, intentan acordar la mejor manera de combatir, con una sola voz, este fenómeno delictivo.The impact of money laundering in the contemporary world is impressive. In part, media attention has contributed to this impact since world media informs on a daily basis of money laundering cases; at the same time, its economic impact plays a role in the relevance citizens put in this phenomenon. It affects the State accounts as well as the individual well-being of particular subjetcs, not to mention its macroeconomic impact. Money laundering has been treated, together with drug traffic, since the early eighties as a problem for the individual State. At first it was considered a collateral damage, without realizing the really destructive capacity it holds. In the last twenty years its dangers have been realized and a constellation of laws, resolutions, instructions, etc, have been produced by the States. But Status are oftenly unable to fight a phenomenon that trascends fisical borders in a global world.


Author(s):  
Duangui Wang

Formulation of the problem. In the chamber-vocal genre, the composer exists in two images: he is both the interpreter of the poetic composition and the author of a new synthetic music and poetic composition. The experience of the style analysis of one of the best examples of Ukrainian vocal lyrics of the first third of the 20th century shows that the cycle op. 20 characterizes the mature style of the composer, which was formed, on the one hand, under the influence of European Romanticism. On the other hand, the essence of the Ukrainian “branch” of the Western European song-romance (“solo-singing”) is revealed by the prominent national song-romance intonation, filled with not only a romantic worldview, but also with some personal sincerity, chastity, intimate involvement with the great in depth and simplicity poetry line, read from the individual position of the musician. The paradox is as follows. Although Pushkin’s poetry is embodied in a “holistic adequacy” (A. Khutorskaya), and the composer found the fullest semantic analogue of the poetic source, however, in terms of translating the text into the Ukrainian language, the musical semantics changes its intonation immanence, which naturally leads to inconsistency of the listeners’ position and ideas about the style of Russian romance. We are dealing with inter-specific literary translation: Pushkin’s discourse creates the Ukrainian romance style and system of figurative thinking. The purpose of the article is to reveal the principle of re-semantization of the intonation-figurative concept of the vocal composition by V. Kosenko (in the context of translating Pushkin’s poetry into the Ukrainian language) in light of the theory of interspecific art translation. Analysis of recent publications on the topic. Among the most recent studies of Ukrainian musicology, one should point out the dissertation by G. Khafizova (Kyiv, 2017), in which the theory of modelling of the stylistic system of the vocal composition as an expression of Pushkin’s discourse is described. The basis for the further stylistic analysis of V. Kosenko’s compositions is the points from A. Hutorska’s candidate’s thesis; she develops the theory of interspecific art translation. The types of translation of poetry into music are classified according to two parameters. The exact translation creates integral adequacy, which involves the composer’s finding a maximally full semantic analogue of the poetic source. The free translation is characterized by compensatory, fragmentary, generalized-genre adequacy. Presenting the main material. The Zhitomir period for Viktor Kosenko was the time of the formation of his creative style. Alongside the lyrical imagery line, the composer acquired one more – dramatic, after his mother’s death. It is possible that the romances on the poems of A. Pushkin are more late reflection of this tragic experience (op. 20 was created in 1930). “I Loved You” opens the vocal cycle and has been dedicated by A. V. Kosenko. The short piano introduction contains the intonation emblem of the love-feeling wave. The form of the composition is a two part reprising (А А1) with the piano Introduction and Postlude. The semantic culmination is emphasized by the change of metro-rhythmic organization 5/4 (instead of 4) and the plastic phrase “as I wish, that the other will love you” sounding in the text. Due to these melodies (with national segments in melo-types, rhythm formulas and harmony) V. Kosenko should be considered as “Ukrainian Glinka”, the composer who introduced new forms and “figures” of the love language into the romantic “intonation dictionary”. In general, V. Kosenko’s solo-singing represents the Ukrainian analogue of Pushkin’s discourse – the theme of love. The melos of vocal piece “I Lived through My Desires” is remembered by the broad breath, bright expression of the syntactic deployment of emotion. On the background of bass ostinato, the song intonation acquires a noble courage. This solo-singing most intermediately appeal to the typical examples of the urban romance of Russian culture of the 19th century. “The Raven to the Raven” – a Scottish folk ballad in the translation by A. Pushkin. V. Kosenko as a profound psychologist, delicately transmits the techniques of versification, following each movement of a poetic phrase, builds stages of the musical drama by purely intonation means. The semantics of a death is embodied through the sound imaging of a black bird: a marching-like tempo and rhythm of the accompaniment, with a characteristic dotted pattern in a descending motion (like a raven is beating its wings). The middle section is dominated by a slow-motion perception of time space (Andante), meditative “freeze” (size 6/4). The melody contrasts with the previous section, its profile is built on the principle of descending move: from “h1” to “h” of the small octave (with a stop on S-harmony), which creates a psychologically immersed state, filled by premonition of an unexpected tragedy. In general, the Ukrainian melodic intonation intensified the tragic content of the ballad by Pushkin. The musical semantics of V. Kosenko’s romances is marked by the dependence on the romantic “musical vocabulary”, however, it is possible to indicate and national characteristics (ascending little-sixth and fifth intervals, which is filled with a gradual anti-movement; syllabic tonic versification, and other). Conclusion. The romances (“solo-singings”) by V. Kosenko belongs to the type of a free art translation with generalized-genre adequacy. There is a re-semantization of poetic images due to the national-mental intonation. Melos, rhythm, textural presentation (repetitions), stylization of different genre formulas testify to the rare beauty of Kosenko’s vocal style, spiritual strength and maturity of the master of Ukrainian vocal culture. Entering the “Slavic song area”, the style of Ukrainian romance, however, is differenced from the Russian and common European style system of figurative and intonation thinking (the picture of the world).


2021 ◽  
pp. 135-144
Author(s):  
Elena Evgenievn Tikhomirova ◽  

The author of the article focuses on the analysis of specific methods and techniques for identifying the universal and unique cultural meanings of biblical parables in the study of the disciplines of the humanities cycle in a pedagogical university. The purpose of the article is to develop techniques for working with parables for practical classes in the cultural cycle at the Pedagogical University. Research methodology and methods. The work is based on the use of the methodology of the sociocultural and activity-based approach to the psychological development of the individual, as well as systemic and holistic approaches to education. When decoding the meanings of parables as texts of culture, it is proposed to use axiological, semiotic, cognitive and systemic approaches. The systemic culturological approach allows you to create conditions for the development of aesthetic taste, artistic thinking. Research results. As the scientific literature and the practice of teaching culturological disciplines at the Pedagogical University show, working with parables teaches us to personally and emotionally perceive the text of culture, to adequately assess the relationship in the system man-man and man-world, to recode the content from one semiotic system to another. Through the interpretation of the text, the individual creative abilities of students are developed, a steady interest in modern art practices is formed. Interpretation of the categories of culture, embodied in human and natural images of the transcendental, time, space, make it possible to essentially comprehend the texts of culture containing the plots of biblical parables. Conclusion. The consistent identification of the specifics of the study of parables in the context of the spiritual quest of a certain historical period contributes to the emergence of interest and the formation of a respectful attitude towards the cultural heritage, the values of world culture. Cultural practices of working with cultural texts contribute to an adequate understanding of the place of national culture in the world artistic process and its creative enhancement.


DIALOGO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-217
Author(s):  
Stephan A Schwartz

"This paper addresses the central idea of nonlocal consciousness: that all life is interconnected and interdependent, that we are part of a matrix of life, but even more fundamentally than spacetime itself arises from consciousness, not consciousness from spacetime. It is not a new idea. The excavation of burials dating to the Neolithic (≈ 10,200-2,000 BCE) has revealed that early humans had a sense of spirituality and some concept about the nature of human consciousness. It discusses the bargain made between the Roman Church, and the emerging discipline of science in the 16th century, one taking consciousness (packaged as “spirit”), the other spacetime, and how this led to physicalism taking root as a world view and becoming the prevailing materialist paradigm. It describes the emergence of a new paradigm that incorporates consciousness and lays out the four relevant descriptors helping to define what this new paradigm will look like. They are: • Only certain aspects of the mind are the result of physiologic processes. • Consciousness is causal, and physical reality is its manifestation. • All consciousnesses, regardless of their physical manifestations, are part of a network of life which they both inform and influence and are informed and influenced by; there is a passage back and forth between the individual and the collective. • Some aspects of consciousness are not limited by the time/space continuum and do not originate entirely within an organism’s neuroanatomy. "


Author(s):  
Nicholas Longridge ◽  
Pete Clarke ◽  
Raheel Aftab ◽  
Tariq Ali

Prosthodontics comprises most of the routine restorative treatments that practitioners perform on a daily basis. Much restorative work re¬sults from the impact of caries and periodontal disease. However, the prevalence of toothwear is dramatically increasing and can be expected to form a more prominent feature of the modern practitioner’s work¬load. There is a considerable theory base in prosthodontics, covering all aspects of fixed and removable treatments, both conventional and contemporary. Although the individual management of teeth can be tricky, a challenge many new practitioners struggle with is treatment planning on a patient level. Treatment planning is rarely black and white, with considerable variations in opinion among clinicians, even for more simple cases. The staging of treatment planning is fairly consistent across the profession (e.g. relief of pain first, then investigatory phase, etc.), but in complex cases, a second opinion may be warranted. Not only is treatment plan¬ning a difficult skill, but so is the execution. It takes practice to become adept at the variety of clinical skills in prosthodontics and the staging of treatment, but this makes for a rewarding and fascinating discipline. Modern dentistry has a much greater focus on minimal invasive treat-ment, relying on dentine bonding and adhesive dentistry to limit the need for aggressive preparations of teeth and protect the vitality of the pulp. Moreover, the progression in digital dentistry is exponential, with newer production methods and clinical techniques becoming increasingly accurate and ever more accessible. As such, the modern practitioner needs to have a good understanding of both conventional concepts and modern alternatives in order to be able to apply the material and tech¬nique of choice to achieve an optimal outcome. The questions in the chapter aim to cover a wide range of topics, testing conventional concepts in both fixed and removable prostho¬dontics, whilst touching on contemporary materials and production methods. It is hoped that the reader will be challenged and the more difficult questions will promote wider reading. Key topics include: ● Diagnosis and treatment planning ● Occlusion ● Toothwear ● Complete dentures ● Removable dentures (including denture design principles) ● Direct restorations ● Crown and bridge ● Implant restorations ● Laboratory processes ● Digital dentistry.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Decker

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the development process of emergent materials for architecture by looking at the example of Phase Change Materials. In the context of the complex nature of the constructed environment and the functional and performance requirements for buildings, emergent materials have to be carefully tuned for maximum performance. Investigating the relationship of time, space and matter in the design and development process through interdisciplinary endeavors is at the heart of this investigation. Furthermore, a shift from multidisciplinary endeavors to truly interdisciplinary collaboration that crosses the traditional boundaries of the individual fields is suggested.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 1273-1280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Lacome ◽  
Ben Simpson ◽  
Nick Broad ◽  
Martin Buchheit

Purpose: To examine the ability of multivariate models to predict the heart-rate (HR) responses to some specific training drills from various global positioning system (GPS) variables and to examine the usefulness of the difference in predicted vs actual HR responses as an index of fitness or readiness to perform. Method: All data were collected during 1 season (2016–17) with players’ soccer activity recorded using 5-Hz GPS and internal load monitored using HR. GPS and HR data were analyzed during typical small-sided games and a 4-min standardized submaximal run (12 km·h−1). A multiple stepwise regression analysis was used to identify which combinations of GPS variables showed the largest correlations with HR responses at the individual level (HRACT, 149 [46] GPS/HR pairs per player) and was further used to predict HR during individual drills (HRPRED). Then, HR predicted was compared with actual HR to compute an index of fitness or readiness to perform (HRΔ, %). The validity of HRΔ was examined while comparing changes in HRΔ with the changes in HR responses to a submaximal run (HRRUN, fitness criterion) and as a function of the different phases of the season (with fitness being expected to increase after the preseason). Results: HRPRED was very largely correlated with HRACT (r = .78 [.04]). Within-player changes in HRΔ were largely correlated with within-player changes in HRRUN (r = .66, .50–.82). HRΔ very likely decreased from July (3.1% [2.0%]) to August (0.8% [2.2%]) and most likely decreased further in September (−1.5% [2.1%]). Conclusions: HRΔ is a valid variable to monitor elite soccer players’ fitness and allows fitness monitoring on a daily basis during normal practice, decreasing the need for formal testing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 823-838
Author(s):  
Yongjia Song ◽  
Marlin W. Ulmer ◽  
Barrett W. Thomas ◽  
Stein W. Wallace

In this paper, we consider service applications where drivers serve subscription customers at their homes on a regular basis and at known times. To build trust with customers, the company requires that subscription customers are consistently served by the same driver. In addition to subscription customers, on-demand customers request delivery on a daily basis. For the company, the challenge is to consistently serve the subscription customers while simultaneously maximizing the daily profit from the on-demand customers. We model the problem as a two-stage stochastic decision problem. The first stage determines the assignment of drivers to subscription customers. The second stage is a team-orienteering problem with time windows and mandatory visits by fixed drivers. We present an anticipatory consistent customer assignment policy (ACCA) based on the multiple scenario approach framework. Our computational study shows that ACCA significantly outperforms consistency concepts from the literature, while increasing costs less than 5%.


2018 ◽  
Vol 170 ◽  
pp. 07008
Author(s):  
Robert W Mills ◽  
David J Mountford ◽  
Jonathon P. Coleman ◽  
Carl Metelko ◽  
Matthew Murdoch ◽  
...  

The anti-neutrino source properties of a fission reactor are governed by the production and beta decay of the radionuclides present and the summation of their individual anti-neutrino spectra. The fission product radionuclide production changes during reactor operation and different fissioning species give rise to different product distributions. It is thus possible to determine some details of reactor operation, such as power, from the anti-neutrino emission to confirm safeguards records. Also according to some published calculations, it may be feasible to observe different anti-neutrino spectra depending on the fissile contents of the reactor fuel and thus determine the reactor's fissile material inventory during operation which could considerable improve safeguards. In mid-2014 the University of Liverpool deployed a prototype anti-neutrino detector at the Wylfa R1 station in Anglesey, United Kingdom based upon plastic scintillator technology developed for the T2K project. The deployment was used to develop the detector electronics and software until the reactor was finally shutdown in December 2015. To support the development of this detector technology for reactor monitoring and to understand its capabilities, the National Nuclear Laboratory modelled this graphite moderated and natural uranium fuelled reactor with existing codes used to support Magnox reactor operations and waste management. The 3D multi-physics code PANTHER was used to determine the individual powers of each fuel element (8×6152) during the year and a half period of monitoring based upon reactor records. The WIMS/TRAIL/FISPIN code route was then used to determine the radionuclide inventory of each nuclide on a daily basis in each element. These nuclide inventories were then used with the BTSPEC code to determine the anti-neutrino spectra and source strength using JEFF-3.1.1 data. Finally the anti-neutrino source from the reactor for each day during the year and a half of monitored reactor operation was calculated. The results of the preliminary calculations are shown and limitations in the methods and data discussed.


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