Search

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected education at all levels in various ways. This paper provides a review of the literature on the challenges of online learning for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Method: In total, 17 studies from nine countries were analysed. The challenges of online learning for children with SEND reported by teachers and parents and the strategies applied to overcome the challenges were identified. Results: The challenges of online learning were the need of parental support, routine change, inequities of resources and access to technology, lack of accommodations, and social isolation. There was a considerable lack of interventions aimed at promoting the educational outcomes of children with SEND. Conclusions: The findings emphasise the importance of parent-teacher collaboration and communication. Suggestions for strategies to address challenges as well as for further research are also discussed.

Peer Assisted learning (PAL) in-class is well-established and flourishing in higher education across the globe; nevertheless, interest is growing in online versions and is reflected by a number of pilot schemes. These programs have responded to perceived and actual needs of students and institutions; they have explored the available software packages and have begun to create a bank of learning through academic publications, institutional reports, evaluations, and SINET listserv discussions. This paper examines existing online PAL practice from Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA, and focuses on synchronous modes. We discuss (a) the context, mode, and scope of online PAL, and (b) implementation considerations. Despite some "teething problems" of these pilots we are convinced by the early and so far limited explorations highlighted here that online PAL can make a significant contribution to learners in higher education by improving engagement through the flexibility afforded by the online space.

As a part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) students participate in the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course. This research used a mixed methods design to investigate the perspective of TOK teachers in IB schools worldwide. To address the research questions, quantitative survey data were analyzed from 1,534 participants, and focus groups with 33 TOK teachers were conducted in Australia, The Netherlands, and the United States. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, and linear trends analysis to identify group differences. Qualitative data were coded and analyzed using an inductive approach. Overwhelmingly, survey results indicated that teachers value the TOK course. Teachers ranked the main purposes of the TOK course as 1) to develop an awareness of how knowledge is constructed, critically examined, and renewed by individuals and communities and 2) to help students make connections among academic disciplines and among thoughts, feelings and actions. Teachers ranked the main benefits to students as 1) students better able to critically evaluate knowledge and 2) students better able to identify and reflect on personal assumptions. Teachers strongly agreed that teaching TOK has been a valuable professional development experience for them. Specifically, they indicated it enhanced their own critical thinking and developed their interdisciplinary understanding. Survey results and focus groups suggest the main challenges are 1) assessment, 2) time, and 3) administrative issues (scheduling and class size). Regarding implementation, approximately half of DP coordinators indicated that TOK implementation was different than other IB Diploma Programme aspects, specifically that teacher support and time were different.

Planning is an important phase of teaching, during which teachers make decisions about various aspects of instruction that ultimately shape students' opportunities to learn. Prior research on teacher planning, however, fails to adequately describe experienced teachers' planning decisions, and is unclear about the extent to which teachers use curriculum materials to inform their decisions. Using data from 6th grade mathematics teachers' use of curriculum materials, this study presents a discipline-specific model of experienced mathematics teachers' planning. The proposed model provides a lens for understanding the nature of teachers' planning decisions, and the conditions under which such decisions change over time. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

Using data from the National Center for Educational Statistics research spanning fifteen years, researchers examined the impact of national educational policy implementation on the role of social studies in elementary schools. Specifically, with the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2007 and the continuation of federal-mandated testing of English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in grades three through five, researchers sought to understand how policy decisions to extend testing to science affected teacher decisions in regard to instructional time allocations for core subject areas of ELA, mathematics, science, and social studies in elementary schools. Results of this quantitative study offer large-scale evidence of the declining role of social studies in an era in which testing is clearly linked to subject-area importance. Findings provide an overview of the national scope of testing and the ramifications for social studies in elementary schools. Researchers conclude that curriculum standardization, accountability, and high-stakes testing have had adverse affects on social studies time allotments in comparison to tested subjects. (Contains 2 figures and 2 notes.)

On a recent visit to Murmansk, Russia to explore collaborative possibilities between the University of North Florida and Murmansk State Pedagogical University (MSPU), two educators jumped at the chance to visit a local kindergarten. As a former kindergarten teacher, one was curious to see how this kindergarten varied from what she had experienced with public kindergartens in the United States. As a science educator, the other was anxious to observe the science and technology instruction in early childhood programs in Russia. Though their experience was insufficient to draw conclusions and do in-depth comparisons, they were able to gain some insights and make comparisons based on their interviews and observations, which they share in this article. They provide an overview of Russian kindergartens; discuss the issues of salary, school schedules, and education theories and conventions in the Russian kindergarten system; and then describe what they found during their visit to the kindergarten in Murmansk.

The prevalence and attributable risk of disease due to physical inactivity require it to be made a public health priority. Public health planning allows for prioritization and resource allocation, particularly at the state and local levels. The extent to which state planning efforts for physical activity exist in the United States is unknown. The purpose of this paper is to describe the scope in which physical activity is incorporated in state-level public health plans in the United States, with an emphasis on alignment with the national guidelines and the National Physical Activity Plan. A standardized internet search audit was developed and conducted for each of 50 US states and the District of Columbia between May 2017 and January 2018 to determine the prevalence and characteristics of health planning documents that include physical activity. Data abstracted for analysis used a standardized search protocol that included the components of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and the US National Physical Activity Plan. Results found that most states had between 4 and 6 chronic disease prevention and control plans that mention physical activity; however, it was inconsistently aligned with recommendations from both the Guidelines and the National Plan. Only 2 states had stand-alone public health planning documents explicitly dedicated to physical activity promotion. No state planning documents addressed children and adolescents, adults, and older adults simultaneously. To be maximally effective, state public health planning for physical activity should be made a priority and these efforts should align as much as possible with current guidance from the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and the US National Physical Activity Plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research problem: High turnover rates in long-term nursing facilities exacerbate the existing shortage of caregivers, a trend that will only worsen as the population of the United States ages. Part-time certified nursing assistants (CNAs) provide a significant amount of patient care in these facilities. CNAs also have high annual rates of turnover, which can harm health outcomes and increase the cost of care. In this study, we empirically analyze the effect of scheduling decisions on part-time CNA turnover. We explore three research questions that examine both how much and with whom a CNA is scheduled to work. We seek to empirically answer how (1) hours worked and (2) coworker variability influence turnover for part-time CNAs and if (3) coworker variability moderates the relationship between hours worked and CNA turnover. Methodology/results: Using novel data from one of the nation's largest nursing home organizations, which includes data for 6,221 part-time CNAs at 157 facilities in the United States over a 26-month period, we identify two scheduling levers managers may be able to use to influence turnover. As hours worked increase, turnover first decreases and then increases, demonstrating a nonlinear U-shaped relationship between hours worked and turnover. We also find that high coworker variability increases turnover while also moderating the effects of hours worked on turnover. In post hoc analyses, we demonstrate that high CNA turnover has negative impacts on patient health. Managerial implications: These findings suggest that managers may be able to leverage part-time CNA scheduling to reduce turnover, improving both the quality and cost of care. Specifically, we demonstrate that managers can reduce CNA turnover by increasing hours worked, scheduling coworkers together consistently and doing both simultaneously. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2021.0533. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wills and powers of attorney are two components of effective estate planning. Financial professionals are in a privileged position to identify roadblocks that prevent clients from establishing these critical components of an estate plan. When a client or loved ones are ill, incapacitated, or pass, these documents help guide individuals and families through tough times. This column provides a brief overview of the current landscape of wills and powers of attorney in the United States and how financial professionals can assist clients and their loved ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scheduling Advertising on Cable Television Advertisement scheduling is a daily essential operational process in the television business. Efficient distribution of viewers among advertisers allows the television network to satisfy contracts and increase ad sale revenues. Ad scheduling is a challenging multiperiod, mixed-integer programming problem in which the network must create schedules to meet advertisers' campaign goals and maximize ad revenues. Each campaign must meet a specific target group of viewers and a unique set of constraints. Moreover, the number of viewers is uncertain. To solve this problem, S. Souyris, S. Seshadri, and S. Subramanian develop and implement a practical approach that combines mathematical programming and machine learning to create daily schedules. According to standard business metrics and the small integer programming gap, these schedules are of high quality. Using their methods, leading networks in the United States and India experience a 3% to 5% revenue increase, which translates to about $60 million annually for one prominent user. Advertisement scheduling is a daily essential operational process in the television business. Efficient distribution of viewers among advertisers allows the television network to satisfy contracts and increase ad sale revenues. Ad scheduling is a challenging multiperiod, mixed-integer programming problem in which the network must create schedules to meet advertisers' campaign goals and maximize ad revenues. Each campaign must meet a specific target group of viewers and a unique set of constraints. Moreover, the number of viewers is uncertain. To solve this problem, we develop and implement a practical approach that combines mathematical programming and machine learning to create daily schedules. These schedules are of high quality according to standard business metrics and the small integer programming gap. Leading networks in the United States and India using our methods experience a 3%–5% revenue increase. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2022.2430. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snowfall in the central United States has been shown to be highly variable at interannual timescales and subjected to long‐term linear trends. However, limited understanding is available about the intra‐annual variations and trends in snowfall within this region. Using a selection of GHCN daily snowfall observations and statistical analyses, this study develops a monthly climatology of snowfall characteristics in the central United States from 1948 to 2021. Here we find larger magnitude snowfall events have a greater relative frequency to seasonal snowfall late in the snow season, have increased in frequency in the western and northern regions of the basin, and contribute to a bimodal distribution of monthly snowfall in these sub‐regions. While snowfall has significantly increased over time within the northern and western regions of the domain by as much as 83%, snowfall has significantly decreased by much as 46% in the southern and eastern regions. Further, March snowfall totals and event frequencies have declined across the vast majority of the study domain, with maximum decreases in eastern IA of approximately 50%. When coupled with increases in snowfall and snowfall events in February, this suggests a shift in the snowfall season with time in this portion of the study region. Such results may be of particular interest to snow and water resource managers where integration of the nonstationarity of snowfall events and totals with time into management plans may yield better solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pediatric immunization is important for preventing potentially life-threatening diseases in children. Over time, the number of recommended pediatric vaccines has increased and is likely to increase further as new vaccines are developed. Given the different number of doses for available vaccines and various constraints (e.g., the appropriate age for each dose of a vaccine or the time between doses), it is challenging to develop a recommended vaccination schedule or a catch-up schedule when a child falls behind on one or more vaccinations. We developed an integer programming optimization model, enabled by Python programming and embedded into an Excel-based decision tool, to recommend childhood vaccination schedules or personalized catch-up schedules. The model recommends a vaccination schedule that balances the goal of being as close as possible to the clinically-indicated dosing schedules and the goal of minimizing clinic visits, and gives users the ability to trade off between these two goals. We illustrated the broad applicability of our proposed model with commonly-faced vaccine scheduling challenges in the United States. The illustrative computational case study confirms our model's ability to create personalized schedules based on each child's age and vaccination history, and to adjust appropriately when a new vaccine becomes available. The model presented in this paper fills the need for an easy-to-use tool to recommend vaccination schedules for de novo and catch-up purposes. It provides straightforward recommendations that can be easily used by physicians, is flexible to handle the requirements varying by region, and can be updated as new vaccines are approved for use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many academic libraries rely on a student workforce for everyday operations, interacting with patrons, and assistance with larger projects. Training these students for such multifaceted and customer-service-focused positions can be a challenge. This article traces an overhaul of training procedures made during the transition to a centralized, services desk workflow. All aspects of training a large student workforce, from planning and presentation to assessment, are outlined. Interactive group sessions and peer-to-peer reinforcement of procedures have proven to be most effective in training student workers for varied roles in an academic library. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Infusion therapy refers to the intravenous administration of medicines and fluids for the treatment of status migrainosus, severe persistent headaches, or chronic headache. Headache practices and centers offer this treatment for patients as an alternative to the emergency department (ED) setting. However, little information is available in the literature on understanding the operations of an infusion center. Objective: We sought to survey the Inpatient Headache & Emergency Medicine specialty section and the Academic Program Directors listserv of the American Headache Society (AHS) to better understand current practices. Methods: A survey was advertised and distributed to the listservs of both the Inpatient Headache & Emergency Medicine specialty section and the Academic Program Directors, which combined included both academic and private practices. In addition, the survey was available on laptops at related events at an annual AHS meeting in Scottsdale. Results: Of the 127 members of the combined group of both listservs, 50 responded with an overall survey response rate of 39%. Ten out of fifty were from programs with more than one responder completing the survey, leaving 40 unique headache programs. Academic programs made up the majority of programs (85%, 34/40). The total of 40 participating programs is comparable with the 47 academic headache programs listed on the American Migraine Foundation website at the time of the survey. Of the academic programs surveyed, most were hospital based (n = 23) compared with a satellite location (n = 11). Of all programs surveyed, 68% (27/40) offered infusion therapy. Of those that did not have an infusion practice (n = 13), the most common reason cited was insufficient staffing (n = 8). Key highlights of the survey included the following: The majority of programs offering infusions obtain prior authorization before scheduling (70%, 19/27) and offer patient availability 5 days/week (78%, 21/27) typically only during business hours (81%, 22/27). Programs reported that they typically give three to four medications during each infusion session (72%, 18/25). Treatment paradigms varied between programs. Programs surveyed were concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest regions of the United States. Conclusion: The limited number of headache infusion centers overall may contribute to the limited ability of headache infusion centers to prevent ED migraine visits. Headache patients can have unpredictable headache onset, and most of the infusion practices surveyed appeared to adapt to this by offering infusions most days during a work week. However, this need for multiple days per week may also explain the most common reason for not having an infusion practice, which is insufficient staffing. Various treatment paradigms are implemented by different practitioners, and future studies will have to focus on investigation of best practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementation of Tier 2 or supplemental reading intervention for students who struggle with reading in elementary schools is a nearly universal practice in the United States. Resources exist for assisting schools with selecting evidence-based interventions. However, there are many more explicit and implicit decisions that schools make when implementing evidence-based intervention that may or may not impact the effectiveness of the intervention. In this literature synthesis, we aggregate the decisions made in effective Tier 2 reading interventions to help students improve their reading skills. These decisions include identifying which students would most benefit from specific interventions, how long to schedule intervention time, how to schedule staffing, the types of professional learning supports needed, and decisions based on progress monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though employment outside of regular daytime business hours has remained high since the 1990s, trends in nonstandard employment schedules over the life course and across households remain under-examined. The consequences of nonstandard scheduling extend to workers, their spouse, and children, urging greater attention to the distribution of nonstandard schedules at the couple-level. Using all three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, this article examines the prevalence, persistence and sociodemographic patterns of rotating and night employment at the couple-level, following 913 married couples in the United States as they aged from the late 1980s to early 2000s. Though aging reduced the likelihood that couples had one or both spouses working nonstandard hours, roughly one-third of couples with nonstandard scheduling continued to experience nonstandard schedules during the subsequent observation period. Nonstandard schedules were stratified by education and race/ethnicity. This stratification persisted as couples aged, even after controlling for prior work schedules. Findings suggest that disadvantaged couples remain disproportionately exposed to schedules associated with negative outcomes for family well-being across the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the strategic planning practices of county-level emergency management agencies (EMAs), with a specific focus on strategic planning adoption and its relationship to local program quality. The study utilized a descriptive, cross-sectional survey design to collect planning- and program-related data from more than 300 county-level EMAs across the United States. The study findings revealed that most of the county EMAs included in the final sample had previously engaged in strategic planning activities, with nearly all of them continuing to use strategic planning as part of their general management practice. The study findings further revealed that strategic planning had a direct and significant impact on the overall quality of local emergency management programs, and that the strategic planning EMAs had significantly higher mean quality scores across all program dimensions when compared to the non-strategic planning EMAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Public mass shootings in the United States have become substantially more deadly over time. We document this increase, offer a model to explain it, review supporting evidence for the model, and present new findings on offenders from 1966 to 2019. It appears that societal changes have led to more public mass shooters who are motivated to kill large numbers of victims for fame or attention, as well as to more shooters who have been directly influenced by previous attackers. They often spend extended time planning their attacks and are increasingly likely to acquire powerful weapons and develop specific strategies to enhance their lethality. Policy Implications: New policies should be aimed at addressing the aforementioned factors. For instance, the deadliest public mass shooters' desires for fame and attention might be countered by a change in media coverage policies. Additionally, the deadliest perpetrators' lengthy planning periods have been associated with more warning signs being reported to police, so that type of information could justify denying many potential attackers access to firearms through extreme risk protection orders and red flag laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a decision support model for optimizing the composition of portfolios of market-driven academic programs, primarily in schools offering market-driven academic programs. This model seeks to maximize financial performance during a desired planning time period while also achieving targets for other non-financial dimensions of the portfolio (e.g. mission alignment, student demographics and faculty characteristics) by deciding the types of programs to be added, redesigned and/or removed for each year of the planning period. Design/methodology/approach: This paper introduces an integer linear program (i.e. mathematical optimization) to describe the portfolio optimization problem. Integer linear programs are widely used for optimizing portfolios of financial and non-financial products and services in non-educational settings. Additionally, in order to use an integer linear program for the model, qualitative data must be incorporated into the quantitative model. To do so, this paper first discusses two methods of quantifying qualitative information related to market-driven program dimensions in the following section. Findings: The paper provides empirical insights related to the impact of this model through an illustrative case from a school offering market-driven academic programs at a prestigious private university in the USA. The results of the case highlight the potential positive impact of utilizing a similar model for planning purposes. Financially, the model results in almost double financial surplus than without the model while also achieving higher scores for all non-financial dimensions measured for the portfolio analyzed. Originality/value: This paper provides a unique and impactful model for decision support in strategic planning for market-driven academic programs, an area of intense discussion and focus in higher education today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ex post tariff schedules for the first time, it was found that the global gains provided by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are not enough to overcome the negative impacts of the United States–China trade dispute. While trade tensions cause China's welfare loss to be more than twice as large as the United States, they provide some trade diversion to RCEP members. But of concern is if India successfully delays the conclusion of the RCEP even by a year, there will be a global loss of US$17.7 billion. The RCEP is also beneficial for the emerging economy of Vietnam and the high‐tariff‐imposing Korean economy. The results obtained here are, however, conservative as reduction in non‐tariff barriers and other positive spillover effects of trade liberalisation related to investment and productivity improvements due to competition or increased intra‐industry trade could not be accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the self-efficacy to schedule exercise among older exercisers in the U.S. Influence of task cohesion on scheduling self-efficacy; Assessment of self-efficacy during the middle of the program; Benefits cited for older exercisers.

• MenB vaccine series completion is suboptimal in the US. • Vaccination completion and adherence to dosing schedule are higher for MenB-4C compared to MenB-FHbp. • Time to complete the series is substantially shorter for MenB-4C than MenB-FHbp. • Increasing completion and adherence to dosing schedule is needed to maximize benefits of vaccination. Two MenB vaccines with different dosing schedules are approved in the US: MenB-4C (2 doses) and MenB-FHbp (2–3 doses). Both vaccines were licensed on the basis of immunogenicity demonstrated after vaccine series completion. We evaluated vaccination completion and adherence to dosing schedules. This retrospective analysis used data from MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database (Commercial) January 1, 2015 - February 28, 2018 and Multi-State Medicaid Database (Medicaid) January 1, 2015 - December 31, 2017 to examine vaccine series completion and adherence to dosing schedule in individuals who initiated a MenB series at ages 16–23 years. Vaccine series completion and dose schedule adherence were assessed during a 15-month follow-up period after the first dose. Completion was defined as individual receipt of the recommended number of doses, with current recommendations applied retroactively to allow individuals who initiated the MenB-FHbp series to be complete with either the 2- or the 3-dose schedule. The study population comprised 65,205 commercially-insured individuals (36,118 initiated MenB-4C; 29,087 initiated MenB-FHbp) and 13,535 Medicaid-covered individuals (10,153 initiated MenB-4C; 3382 initiated MenB-FHbp). In Commercial, 63% of individuals who initiated MenB-4C and 52% of individuals who initiated MenB-FHbp completed vaccination within 15 months; dosing schedule adherence was 62% for MenB-4C initiators and 18% for MenB-FHbp initiators. In Medicaid, 15-month completion rates for MenB-4C and MenB-FHbp initiators were 49% and 31%, respectively, with corresponding dosing schedule adherence of 48% and 8%. Among individuals who completed the series, median time to completion was 68 days for MenB-4C versus 258 days for MenB-FHbp in Commercial and 88 days for MenB-4C versus 309 days for MenB-FHbp in Medicaid. During the study period, MenB vaccine series completion was suboptimal. However, completion was significantly higher for MenB-4C, with notably shorter time to completion. This may reflect the flexible dosing schedule of MenB-4C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In January 2012, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) classified carisoprodol as a Schedule IV controlled substance at the US federal level. We aimed to examine the effect of this policy on the use of carisoprodol in a commercially-insured population.Methods: This interrupted time series study included individuals with musculoskeletal disorders in the IBM MarketScan Commercial Database between December 2009 and February 2014. We used comparative segmented linear regression to assess changes in the proportions of patients who filled/newly filled carisoprodol each month.Results: A total of 13.3 million patients were included. 29 states with no scheduling prior to the DEA classification had lower baseline prevalence of carisoprodol use compared to 17 states that had scheduled carisoprodol individually before 2010 (11.0 vs. 21.1 patients with fills per 1000 patients). The federal scheduling was associated with an immediate decline (-1.12 per 1000 patients, p < 0.01) and decreasing trend in prevalence (-0.07 per 1000 patients per month, p = 0.02). This effect was not modified by existing state-level scheduling status. During the first, second, third, and fourth 6-month periods after federal scheduling, the relative difference between observed and predicted prevalence was 7.8%, 10.5%, 13.4%, and 19.8%. Similar patterns were observed for carisoprodol initiation. Overall, declining use was more pronounced among younger age groups and patients with injury.Conclusions: Schedule IV controlled substance classification at the federal level was associated with a moderate reduction in the dispensing of carisoprodol regardless of whether scheduling was already present at the state level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Twelve University of Dayton air handler units (AHUs) in five buildings were analyzed for potential energy savings. • Eleven AHUs were over-pressurized; reducing their static pressure resulted in 33% fan energy savings. • Nine AHUs served unoccupied zones overnight; scheduling them off resulted in 35% fan energy savings. • All economizers were identified as fully or partially malfunctioning; fixing their controls could result in 17% cooling savings. With heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) consuming the largest share of commercial building energy usage in the U.S., identifying HVAC energy efficiency measures can have a large impact. Thus, this research provides results from a University of Dayton case study of twelve total air handling units (AHUs) in five diverse buildings – academic, athletics, administrative, place of worship, and library – that were analyzed for energy savings through three energy efficiency measures: reducing AHU static pressure (SP), scheduling AHUs off overnight, and identifying and fixing economizer controls. First, variable air volume (VAV) damper position distributions were created to identify over-pressurized AHUs and step down their SP accordingly. Eleven of the twelve AHUs were determined to be over-pressurized and lowering their SP to final setpoints ranging 0.8 – 1.2 inches water-gauge resulted in average fan energy savings of 33%. Next, nine of the twelve AHUs were found to be serving unoccupied zones overnight and were in turn scheduled off for seven to twelve hours per night depending on building usage, resulting in 35% average energy savings. Lastly, AHU fraction outdoor air was calculated and compared to ideal economizer fraction outdoor control. All economizers were identified as fully or partially malfunctioning and if fixed could result in an average of 17% cooling savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed and evaluated a preliminary scintillating fiber-based real-time dose monitoring system (SRDMS) for brachytherapy. The SRDMS consisted of a detector section with 10 scintillating fibers (BCF-12, Saint Gobain Inc., S.A. France) inserted into a long barrel cylinder and a readout system comprising a photo-multiplier tube (PMT H12428-203 MOD, Hamamatsu Photonics, Shizuoka, Japan) and National Instrument Measurement & Automation Explorer (NI MAX, National Instruments, TX, USA). Basic system performance was estimated by measuring the dwell position and time for various patterns of source motion. Signal output response with data sampling, linearity, and reproducibility was also evaluated. In addition, dwell position and time measurement via the SRDMS were compared across three treatment plans, which were applied to a silicone-based human phantom to evaluate the system's response to more complex and realistic situations. The difference between the measured source dwell position and plan was -0.52 ± 0.53 mm. The difference between the measured dwell time and plan was 7 ± 5 ms. For signal output verification, the signal-to-SD ratio was less than 1.5%. The signal output linearity was maintained at -0.43 ± 0.50%, and reproducibility was 1.35 ± 1.44%. In this study, we demonstrated that the SRDMS can accurately detect relative dwell positions and dwell times. In further studies, we plan to verify the accuracy of relative source strength, and update the SRDMS with real-time monitoring. The SRDMS could be used for real-time dose monitoring during brachytherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outpatient services account for more than four-fifths of patient care in the United States, and most patients access these services via appointment scheduling. Because of the possibility of patient no-shows, healthcare providers usually rely on overbooking. If very few patients show up, it will leave hospital resources underutilized, whereas too many showing up will increase patient wait times and increase staff overtime costs. In a hospital or a network of clinics, where patients could enter and exit at various stations and have complex flow patterns, scheduling becomes even more of a challenge. In "Coordinated Patient Appointment Scheduling for a Multistation Healthcare Network," D. Wang, K. Muthuraman, and D. Morrice propose a multistation network model that carefully strikes a balance between assumptions that allow tractability and assumptions that disallow real-world adoption. Given the complexity involved in solving the model, they explore a sequence of approximations and find one that offers a significant computational advantage. Current healthcare reforms advocate significantly to improve the coordination of services around a patient-centric model. With most patient care delivered through outpatient services, the need to coordinate scheduling between different services in a hospital or colocated clinics becomes central to successful reform. Currently, outpatient services require independent appointment decisions, and the coordination is left to the patient. This approach causes several inefficiencies, including an increase in missed appointments and unacceptable access delays. This paper proposes a multistation network model that carefully strikes a balance between assumptions that allow tractability and assumptions that disallow real-world adoption. To allow for real-world applicability, we consider sequential appointment scheduling in a network of stations with exponential service times, no-show possibilities, and overbooking. We argue and present evidence that a heuristic myopic scheduling policy is close to optimal. However, because it is not simple enough for practical implementation, we explore a sequence of approximations and find one that offers a significant computational advantage. We also provide several managerial insights and discuss how network structures affect complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and rationale: Cathinones are amphetamine analogues that produce stimulant effects with rewarding properties. For many decades, synthetic cathinones have been used in the United States (USA) for abuse purposes, leading to concern about public safety by the federal government. Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the federal government may place drugs with high abuse potential but no currently accepted medical use into Schedule I of the CSA. The process of scheduling an abusable drug involves both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the Department of Justice, through the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Results: This paper details how numerous synthetic cathinones were placed under CSA control between 1973 and 2018, with an emphasis on 10 cathinones that were placed into Schedule I in 2017 (butylone, naphyrone, pentylone, pentedrone, 3-fluoro-N-methylcathinone (FMC), 4-FMC, 4-methyl-N-ethylcathinone, 4-methyl-pyrrolidinopropiophenone, alpha-pyrrolidinobutiophenone, and α-pyrrolidinopentiophenone). A summary is provided of the scientific and medical analysis performed by HHS, in the form of an Eight-Factor Analysis (8FA), as prescribed by the CSA. This 8FA was then evaluated and signed by the Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS and transmitted to DEA, which permanently placed the 10 cathinones into Schedule I after public notices were published into the Federal Register. Discussion and conclusions: Understanding the scientific data, analysis, and complex process utilized by the US federal government in the CSA scheduling of cathinones with abuse potential and no accepted medical use is important for transparency in governmental decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Some countries allow physicians to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade diamorphine to dependent users who have previously undergone treatment but are still using street-sourced heroin; this is not allowed in the US. This study provides the first nationally representative US data concerning public support for prescribing diamorphine to dependent users. We also test the hypothesis that calling it "diamorphine" instead of "heroin" increases support for this approach.Methods: The RAND American Life Panel is a nationally representative, probability-based survey of US adults. Of the 3345 panel members invited to take the survey, 2530 (75.6%) provided a valid response to our question module. Respondents were randomly assigned to have the question refer to the prescribed drug as either "heroin" or "diamorphine." The groups did not significantly differ on sex, age, race/ethnicity, or education. We compare the distribution of responses for the two groups and conduct Pearson's chi-squared test with the Rao-Scott correction.Results: For those asked whether the US should try prescribing pharmaceutical-grade "heroin," the share answering "Yes" (20.8%) was 15 percentage points lower than those responding "No" (35.8%). When the question asked about "diamorphine," the results were nearly reversed: the share answering "Yes" (30.6%) was almost 12 percentage points higher than those responding "No" (18.9%). The distributions of responses were significantly different (p < 0.001).Conclusions: Support for prescribing diamorphine to dependent users is low in the US. While the results are consistent with the hypothesis that referring to heroin as diamorphine may reduce stigma associated with the substance and increase support for prescribing it, opinions may change as individuals learn they are different names for the same substance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general agreement on the desirability of "full employment" often obscures the very real disagreement over the meaning to be attached to that term. Critics of the Census measure of unemployment have long charged that this measure seriously understates the extent of unemployment, particularly during periods of recession and depression. The authors of this article propose a new measure of "labor slack," or the underutilization of the potential labor force, which they believe would effectively complement the present Census measure in providing policy makers with the information needed to implement the Full Employment Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the value of an executive's time and the importance of proper time management. The authors note that an executive's time is an important resource and plays a significant role in the planning of an organization's activities. The authors examine time management literature and attempt to develop an easy to understand process for learning how to effectively and efficiently manage time. They present ten principals that outline the entire process of time management including planning, analysis, budgeting, flexibility, implementation and segmentation.

Airlines use robust scheduling to mitigate the impact of unforeseeable disruptions on profits. We examine how effectively three common practices-flexibility to swap aircraft, flexibility to reassign gates, and scheduled aircraft downtime-accomplish this goal. We first estimate a multiple-input, multiple-outcome production frontier, which defines the attainable set of outcomes from given inputs. We then recover unobserved input costs and calculate how expenditure on inputs affects outcomes and revenues. We find that the per-dollar return from expenditure on gates, or more effective management of existing gate capacity, is three times larger than the per-dollar returns from other inputs. Next, we use the estimated trade-offs faced by carriers along the frontier to measure the value to carriers of reducing delays. Finally, we calculate the improvement in carriers' outcomes and profits if their operational inefficiencies are eliminated. On average, we estimate that operational inefficiencies cost carriers about $1.7 billion in revenue annually. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 6.4 million households experience food insecurity; yet, the United States wastes 30%-40% of the food it produces each year (Feeding America, 2017; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2015). This paper is concerned with food access and food recovery, two aspects of food security. Those concerned with food security (access to food) pay close attention to the social, economic, and institutional components of a community that affect an individual's ability to obtain a certain quantity and quality of food (U. S. Department of Agriculture, 2017). Food recovery occurs when food is collected from food establishments, farmers, or both to be donated to those in need (U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2017). This is called gleaning, a collective effort that requires coordination, knowledge, and time to plan the gathering of excess food (U. S. Department of Agriculture, n.d.). The authors hope the information in this brief will help other communities take action to decrease food waste and increase food access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Time spent at home increased 1.2–1.9 h per day during the pandemic. • 1-member households spent less time at home. • 2 + member households spent more time at home. • Office and kitchen space usage increased during the pandemic. • Changes to occupancy have strong implications on home energy use. Many aspects of the daily lives of those living in the United States were substantially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2020. A broad diversity of measures was implemented to curb the spread of the virus, many of which included adjustments to where and how people worked, went to school, and otherwise conducted their daily lives compared to pre-pandemic times. This has impacted how residential buildings are used, how much time people spend in their homes, and as a result, how much energy these buildings consume. The main objective of this study is to analyze, at a national scale, the differences in the occupancy schedules and activities conducted in homes in the U.S., as compared to pre-pandemic. 15 years of American Time Use Survey and Current Population Survey data, from 2006 to 2020, was used in this study to analyze the occupancy schedules for both pandemic (2020) and pre-pandemic (2006–2019) times. These impacts were also analyzed with respect to variables including, weekday/weekend, month of the year, age of the occupants, household income, and household size. The impact of the pandemic on occupant schedules were most substantial in the initial months, whereas as the months progressed, these occupancy profiles slowly changed. Across 2020, people spent, on average, 8 % more time (1.9 h) in their home on weekdays, and 3–6 % (1.2 h) on weekend days. The percentage of time spent for different activities and locations within homes were also studied. For 1-member households, their time spent at home decreased whereas for 2-, 3-, and 4- member households, they spent more time at home. Overall, people spent around 45% more time doing office- and work-related activities at home compared to pre-pandemic, which is likely due to increased remote working and schooling. This research helps to improve the understanding of the occupancy presence and absence profiles in U.S. residential buildings due to the pandemic and provides new insights as to modified profiles for researchers, building designers, and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination timetabling problem at a large American university is presented. Although there are some important differences, the solution approach is based on the ITC 2007 winning solver which is integrated in the open source university timetabling system UniTime. In this work, nine real world benchmark data sets are made publicly available and the results on four of them are presented in this paper. A new approach to further decreasing the number of student conflicts by allowing some exams to be split into multiple examination periods is also studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Science Foundation provides funding for scientific research throughout the United States. Its program directors solicit requests for funding through calls for proposals and then assemble panels of experts to review these requests. The program directors are responsible for reserving meeting rooms for each of the panels. Our work automates much of the room reservation process by constructing and solving an optimization model that determines how panels should be assigned to available rooms to maximize the utilization of available meeting rooms. The model accommodates multiday panels, differences between the rooms (e.g., capacity, projector support), and double-booking constraints for both rooms and panel organizers. Staff members at the National Science Foundation are currently using this software, and have employed it to successfully schedule engineering directorate panels for the 2014–2015 review year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few projects have had such a profound and lasting effect on the world as the Manhattan Project. Today, after it was approved 70 years ago by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, its legacy is felt in nuclear medicine, military defence, terrorist threats, and the production of energy. What was remarkable about this project was that to succeed it had to push through the frontiers of knowledge in ways that are impressive even by today's standards. This paper includes a short history of the project and the challenges that had to be overcome. But the paper is primarily about a very large organisation that was forced to learn quickly, compress each stage in the project in a race against time, and pass knowledge, which was often incomplete, from one phase to the next. As such, it makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on the management of large-scale science projects and provides insight into the problems that these projects face today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents practical advice for inexperienced attorneys and legal advocates in the U.S. on how to handle their first labor arbitration proceedings as of 2015, and it mentions the common practices of labor arbitrators in American hearings, as well as the fact finding process and interpretations of contract provisions. Scheduling plans and time management skills are examined, as well as witness sequestration and the difference between procedural and substantive arbitrability.

Regional air mobility refers to the transportation of passengers aboard small aircraft over short distances. These operations are challenging due to low passenger volumes, competing transportation modes, and high operating costs. Nevertheless, the recent convergence of new technologies for electric propulsion and autonomy brings the promise of step-changes in both operating efficiency and sustainability. The next challenge is to define concepts of operations that best use these advanced aircraft. We develop a modeling and optimization environment to address this challenge by first estimating the passenger demand for regional air mobility, and then by concurrently optimizing the fleet assignment and scheduling of these operations. This helps identify the optimum fleet composition and the network of routes that best serve this demand. The contribution of this research is the formulation of the optimization as a half-leg half-itinerary mixed-integer linear program using a hierarchical multi-objective approach that provides insights about trade-offs between profitability and emissions. We demonstrate the ability of this environment to solve large fleet assignment and scheduling problems to near optimality by applying it to the United States Northeast Corridor using a fleet of electric and hybrid-electric regional aircraft. Results highlight that the transition to an electrified fleet allows serving twice the number of communities currently served, while reducing the carbon emissions per passenger by fifty percent. With improving battery specific energy density, many more untapped markets can be served profitably and sustainably, and many smaller communities can get connected to the rest of the National Airspace System. • Optimization of fleet assignment and scheduling for regional air mobility. • Half-leg half-itinerary hierarchical multi-objective mixed-integer program. • Maximize profits and minimize carbon footprint, determine fleet composition. • Improved connectivity of underserved communities using electrified aircraft. • Regional air mobility demand modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Long-haul carriers are facing a shortage of drivers in North American countries. To reduce turnover rates and improve driver retention, trucking companies are making more efforts to improve their drivers' quality of life. The aim of this paper is to introduce and solve a multi-objective vehicle routing and truck driver scheduling problem under the legislative requirements on work and rest hours in the US (US MOVRTDSP). We present a tabu search algorithm that solves the US MOVRTDSP and provides a heuristic non-dominated solution set from which tradeoffs between operating costs and driver inconvenience are evaluated. The tradeoffs between the number of vehicles used and operating costs are also estimated. Overall, interpretations of the computational results on artificial and real-life instances provide meaningful information to long-haul carriers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the barriers facing persons with disabilities when attempting to access the U.S. health care system. Topics include physical barriers to care including elevators, ramps, parking, doorways and bathrooms, the lack of clear standards for accessible medical equipment, and the need to review policies and procedures to include reservation of accessible equipment and staff when patients are expected for an appointment and flagging of any special needs in the scheduling system.

A coupled simulation-optimization with reanalysis-based short-term weather forecasts from a regional climate model (RCM) is proposed to optimize an irrigation scheduling problem. Using different physical configurations of the climate extension of a weather research and forecasting model (CWRF) that is driven by national atmospheric model project reanalysis data, five ensemble outlooks of 15 consecutive daily forecasts have been generated during five different crop-growing seasons. Six daily climatic variables are forecasted, namely, rainfall, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation. To correct the forecasts for any inherent bias, the quantile mapping method is applied to all six daily climatic variables. After bias correction, a skill assessment of the reanalysis-based RCM forecasts indicate that only the first three climatic variables are predicted with reliable accuracy; thus, average climatic means are used to replace the remaining three variables (humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation). The framework is applied to the Havana Lowlands region, Illinois, as a case study, and the value of forecasts is assessed against two baseline scenarios: no-rain forecast (a pessimistic case) and average climatology (a normal case). Using reanalysis-based RCM forecasts to guide farmers' irrigation decisions could yield about 1-3% in expected profit gain and 4-6% in water reduction when compared to the no-rain forecast scenario, and 1-6% in expected profit gain when compared to the average climatology scenario. This study is a first preliminary attempt to use an ensemble of weather simulations in the optimization of irrigation scheduling, and the developed framework can be used to incorporate operational forecasting once the reanalysis boundary is replaced by global weather forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income tax systems in some countries follow primarily schedular models that classify income by type, match it with deductions from the same class, and compute a separate tax on each class. The United States income tax uses a global tax model under which it taxes citizens and permanent residents on their worldwide income without regard to source or character. The United States system is not purely global but includes schedular elements. This Article exposes embedded schedularity in the United States income tax in the three principal areas of investment income, personal services income, and tax free income. The Article tests whether that schedularity enhances or undercuts the tax principles of horizontal and vertical equity that underlie the development of both global and schedular tax systems in advanced economies. Horizontal equity is a straightforward principle and seems an indisputable precept. It requires that like taxpayers incur like tax burdens. The principle of vertical equity is more nuanced and departs from the principle that as one's income increases, one can and should contribute ever larger percentages of that income to supporting governmental services. Vertical equity assumes that the wealthier one is, the less likely it is that an increased tax burden will diminish the individual's welfare in any material way. Conversely, the less wealthy one is, the more likely it is that an increased tax burden will diminish the individual's welfare materially. The vertical equity principle led to the development of the progressive rate structures. While the Article observes that Congress uses schedular elements to accomplish distributional policy goals, initially in order to protect progressivity, more recently schedularity has tended to increase overall regressivity in taxation. The Article concludes that United States taxation seems to be moderately schedular and that schedularity in the United States contributes to regressivity in taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we formulate and solve a model for choosing the grouping and ordering of state primary elections for a United States presidential election cycle. Our work fills a gap in the existing literature by defining a reproducible procedure for deriving an entire schedule of U.S. primary elections in a way that meets quantifiable goals of efficiency, equity, and effectiveness. Our model considers each state's attributes and gives higher priority to states whose voting and demographic profiles more closely reflect those of the county as a whole. It also clusters states into primary dates in a way that spreads the electorate relatively evenly over the primary season. Finally, the clustering process takes proximity into account, so that political campaigns can focus more effectively on a particular region without incurring excessive travel time. Since these criteria may conflict, the preferred ordering depends on the tradeoffs made among the goals. We highlight two solutions in which states with voting and demographic attributes close to those of the national profile are scheduled early on, while the geographic grouping and spread of voters over the schedule are significantly better than those of the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: US railroad companies spend billions of dollars every year on track maintenance in order to ensure safety and operational efficiency. Optimizing the production team (i.e., large maintenance team) schedule is a very complex problem with major cost implications. In current practice, the decision making process for production team scheduling is largely manual and primarily relies on the knowledge and judgment of experts. This paper addressed the production team scheduling problem by formulating it as a time–space network model with many types of challenging side constraints. Some of these constraints are identified from industry practice and formulated for the first time. Multiple neighborhood search and other enhancement algorithms were proposed to solve the model. The proposed modeling approach has been tested through numerical experiments and also applied to large-scale real-world problem instances, and superior computational performances were found. The proposed approach has been adopted by a Class I railroad to help make annual network maintenance scheduling decisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A system was developed to efficiently schedule aircraft into congested resources over long ranges and present that schedule as a decision support system. The scheduling system consists of a distributed network of independent schedulers, loosely coupled by sharing capacity information. This loose coupling insulates the schedules from uncertainty in long-distance estimations of arrival times, while allowing precise short-term schedules to be constructed. This 'rate profile' mechanism allows feasible schedules to be produced over long ranges, essentially constructing precise short-range schedules that also ensure that future scheduling problems are solvable while meeting operational constraints. The system was tested operationally and demonstrated reduced airborne delay and improved coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. truck driver scheduling problem (US-TDSP) is the problem of visiting a sequence of λ locations within given time windows in such a way that driving and working activities of truck drivers comply with U.S. hours-of-service regulations. In the case of single time windows it is known that the US-TDSP can be solved in O(λ³) time. In this paper, we present a scheduling method for the US-TDSP that solves the single time window problem in Oλ²) time. We show that in the case of multiple time windows the same complexity can be achieved if the gap between subsequent time windows is at least 10 hours. This situation occurs, for example, if, because of opening hours of docks, handling operations can only be performed between 8.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. Furthermore, we empirically show that for a wide range of other problem instances the computational effort is not much higher if multiple time windows are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the creation of single standard of measures of adult student retention because different institutes are using a variety of metrics to measure retention in the U.S. It discusses the importance of defining and measuring adult student retention and challenges in front of it. It also focuses on errors in the development of such a standard.

The scheduling needs of umpires and referees differ from the needs of sports teams. In some sports leagues, such as Major League Baseball in the United States, umpires travel throughout the league's territory; they do not have a "home base." For such leagues, balancing the need to minimize umpire travel and the objective that an umpire should not handle the games of a particular team too frequently is important. We have used our approach, which is based on network optimization and simulated annealing, to successfully schedule Major League Baseball umpires. To develop this approach, we created the traveling umpire problem, which includes the major umpire scheduling issues and also provides a test bed for alternative techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many benefits of building information modeling (BIM) to the construction industry when compared to the traditional approach to design and construction. To properly prepare students, many schools are introducing BIM in their coursework as a response to the current and future needs of the construction industry. The aim of this research was to evaluate the current implementation of BIM and to identify trends in the teaching of BIM in architecture and construction academic programs. A survey that investigated the implementation of BIM into accredited programs in architecture and construction education was sent to architecture and construction schools in the U.S. The survey results indicated that most architecture and construction schools either have an interest in or have already implemented BIM into their curriculum. The majority of the schools expected students to have a basic knowledge of BIM upon graduation; perceived BIM as important to industry; and planned to fully integrate BIM into their curriculum. The results show that more architecture than construction schools have implemented BIM into their curriculum. Construction schools were more likely to use four-dimensional (4D) and five-dimensional (5D) models in teaching construction scheduling and estimating when compared to architecture schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]