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In a paced aircraft final assembly line, some disturbances can be collected timely on the basis of the cyber-physical production system. In order to reduce the execution deviation, some workers need to switch among stations after a fixed period. Thus, a worker allocation problem with the multistage workstation is introduced first. Then, an integer programming formulation is presented to formulate the problem with the objective of shortest workstation cycle and the workload balance of both stations and workers. Moreover, a modified nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-IV) is proposed to solve it, which tradeoff the convergence and the population diversity in the decision space. Finally, the NSGA-IV algorithm compares with five multiobjective evolutionary algorithms in a real-world case. Compared with manual allocation, the takt time of an aircraft final assembly line is reduced by 20.86% by using the NSGA-IV algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In research and clinical genomics laboratories today, sample preparation is the bottleneck of experiments, particularly when it comes to high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS). More genomics laboratories are now considering liquid-handling automation to make the sequencing workflow more efficient and cost effective. The question remains as to its suitability and return on investment. A number of points need to be carefully considered before introducing robots into biological laboratories. Here, we describe the state-of-the-art technology of both sophisticated and do-it-yourself (DIY) robotic liquid-handlers and provide a practical review of the motivation, implications and requirements of laboratory automation for genome sequencing experiments.

This work deals with the improvement of perceived speech quality of flat screen TV-sets on the various broadcasting platforms of the Italian radio and TV broadcasting company Rai. It is well known that the reduced thickness of flat TVs implied a degradation of the audio quality due to the adoption of miniaturised and cheap loudspeakers compared to the ones in the former Cathode Ray Tube televisions. The research activity gave rise to a Transfer Function (TF), which modifies in real-time the frequency spectrum of the audio signal from the TV station before the transmission to the broadcasting tower. In this way, the final users receive the processed audio signal without the need of additional hardware. A Digital Audio Optimizer dynamically equalizes the sound level, boosting the audio signal towards a flat frequency response without any increase in the loudness levels. Given that the majority of the broadcasted audio signals have speech or singing contents, the TF boosts the speech level in the frequency range that is more important for speech intelligibility, i.e., between 1 kHz and 4 kHz. Subjective evaluations of the proposed TF have been carried out in a laboratory in compliance with the standard ITU-R BS.1116. Three different commercial TV-set models, 30 audio excerpts from video tracks divided into the three genres Speech, Sing and Music, and Sport, and 72 subjects aged between 21 and 53 years, were part of the study. Overall, the perceived improvement in the audio quality compared to the non-processed signal was 25.3% on average among the three TV-set models and the three genres. In order to estimate the perceived improvement directly from the audio signal, regression analyses have been performed, which allow the estimation of subjective outcomes from objective indexes based on intensity features and frequency content of the signal, with standard errors between 10% and 14%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a steel industry, a slab yard plays a role of a buffer between continuous casting stage and rolling mill. An effective assignment and scheduling of cranes can guarantee the operation efficiency in the slab yard. This work studies a multicrane scheduling problem with noncrossing constraints of slabs. A mixed-integer programming model is used to formulate the problem that minimizes the whole traveling distance of all the cranes and ensures the workload balance among cranes. As it is an NP-hard problem, classical programming mathematical methods are difficult to get an optimal solution for large-size instances. Thus, we develop a branch and price algorithm to solve this problem. First, we formulate the model as a generalized set covering problem and a set partition problem. Then, we solve them and combine the solutions to obtain the solution of the original problem. Finally, we conduct computational experiments based on real data from an iron–steel plant. The comparisons of proposed methods with an exact solution method show its effectiveness. Note to Practitioners—This work deals with a multicrane scheduling problem. Aiming to minimize the total traveling distance of all the cranes, it establishes a mixed-integer programming model with a workload balance constraint on cranes. It presents a branch and price algorithm to solve the problem whose solution complexity grows exponentially with problem size. The integration of crane assignment and scheduling enables the better utilization of cranes and faster service in iron–steel enterprises and, hence, improving customer satisfaction. The experimental results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It can readily be put into use in the steel industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of personal computing on the interior design of American offices and office furniture from 1970 to 1990. I argue that the cubicle, with its modular system of work surfaces, powered partitions, and ergonomic accessories, served as an intermediary among the computer, the organization, the architecture, and the worker adapting the computer to the office environment, and adapting the office environment to the computer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new closed-loop release policy: Stage-Wise Control (SWC) that maintains the overall shop floor’s workload distributed into stages at a specified level by controlling the release of new jobs along the production line A simulation model is developed for the well-known Mini Fab and a real-life fab to examine the potential advantage of SWC over traditional release policies in terms of the average cycle time, the standard deviation of cycle time, WIP level, the average number of tardy jobs, and throughput. The simulation results indicate that the SWC efficiently generates high-quality schedules for the average cycle time and the standard deviation of cycle time for a prescribed throughput level. Further, several simulation experiments are carried out in this study to understand the relative performance of SWC in comparison with the existing release policies with different dispatching rules, with different system variability levels caused by machine failure, and with different segmentation method. The performance of SWC is satisfactory in most of the considered scenarios compared to the tested release policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we review past and current system architectures displaying self-organization in the domain of manufacturing. Based on a corpus of 84 reference papers, we find that multiagent systems (MAS) play a significant role in self-organization, especially MAS featuring bio-inspired algorithms for agent coordination. The emergence of new classes of cyber-physical systems further strengthens the prevalence of MAS on the subject. As outcome of our review, we devise the MOSAIK model, a generic model synthesizing all system architectures found in our corpus. The MOSAIK model can be used as a reference for formally comparing distinct architectures. We also use it to identify gaps for future research on self-organizing manufacturing systems. The model includes the central concepts of Agent and Artifact, which suggest that the Web is an adequate communication infrastructure for modern manufacturing systems: Agents become (autonomous) Web Agents and Artifacts become resources exposed by Web servers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In research and clinical genomics laboratories today, sample preparation is the bottleneck of experiments, particularly when it comes to high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS). More genomics laboratories are now considering liquid-handling automation to make the sequencing workflow more efficient and cost effective. The question remains as to its suitability and return on investment. A number of points need to be carefully considered before introducing robots into biological laboratories. Here, we describe the state-of-the-art technology of both sophisticated and do-it-yourself (DIY) robotic liquid-handlers and provide a practical review of the motivation, implications and requirements of laboratory automation for genome sequencing experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the rapid technology advancement and market changes, products are becoming outdated and subsequently discarded faster than ever before. Recovery, recycling, and remanufacturing of end-of-life (EOL) products are getting more attention. Disassembly is indispensable to recycle and remanufacture EOL products, and a disassembly line is an efficient way to perform it. A disassembly line balancing problem (DLBP) aims at streamlining the disassembly activities such that the total disassembly time consumed at each workstation is approximately the same and approaching the cycle time. However, the assignment of disassembly operations to workstations in a disassembly shop should ensure the recovery of valuable components and reduce undesirable impact on the environment as much as possible. In this paper, a novel heuristic technique combining multicriterion decision making (MCDM) and general variable neighborhood search (GVNS) is proposed to solve the DLBP. Based on the characteristics of the DLBP, an innovative MCDM method based on fuzzy set theory, grey relational analysis, and Choquet fuzzy integral is developed to evaluate the performance scores and determine the ranking of disassembly tasks. Subsequently, an improved GVNS algorithm is employed to further balance a disassembly line with three objectives, in which a new metric is formulated to integrate with the ranking from MCDM. The proposed method not only takes a comprehensive objective system into consideration but effectively generates a good enough tradeoff disassembly solution. Finally, the proposed approach is illustrated with an example and compared with two other heuristics to show its efficacy in solving the DLBP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its emergence a few decades ago, nanotechnology has been shown to be a perfect example of a crossroad between different fundamentals sciences. In the last 10 years, the continuous progress of classical topdown lithography and the use of alternative bottom-up elaboration methods has allowed new and smaller components to be created. Their combination has led to very complex and innovative architectures. At the same time, flexible, low-cost, and low-ecologicalfootprint devices have emerged. Thus, the diversity and multidisciplinary features present challenges in addressing these issues in educational programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern education requires the search for new methods and means for their implementation. New generations of students also challenge us to apply new approaches to interaction in and out of the classroom. The development of information technology,on the other hand,also challenges us to seek technological pedagogical solutions. That is why I set a goal to reveal the essence of a not very popular method in the Bulgarian school,the method of "workstations". The article discusses the essence of the workstation method,the forms for its application (stations in the open circuit,stations in the closed circuit,split stations,stations with a choice of options) and their specifics. The phases that are passed during the application of the method and the requirements to the training material offered for processing at the stations are described. Station learning is associated with a change in the space in which classes are held and with the attitudes of students about the learning process. In this regard,the necessary preparation of students for work by the method of workstations is described. Assessing the knowledge and skills of students acquired during training is a major problem in the educational process. The article discusses the possibilities for checking and evaluating the work of students in applying the method of stations,the self-assessment that students can make and the role of the teacher in terms of monitoring and evaluating the progress of students. The workstation method can be applied both in conventional training and in electronic,distance and blended forms of training. Modern information and communication technologies offer various tools for conducting training using the method of stations in an electronic environment. Cloud computing such as software as a service are very suitable for such training. They offer a variety of educational applications available to the end user through a web browser,such as Google's applications for education,G Suite for Education. The article proposes a technological solution for using the application for creating a virtual classroom Google Classroom for organizing and conducting training using the method of workstations. Its possibilities for setting tasks,in different stations,for the whole class or individual students and their assessment are considered. The possibility of generating a link to Google Meet for video conferencing between the teacher and the students during the training is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manual assembly is still an essential part in modern manufacturing. Understanding the actual state of the assembly process can not only improve quality control of products, but also collect comprehensive data for production planning and proficiency assessments. Addressing the rising complexity led by the uncertainty in manual assembly, this paper presents an efficient approach to automatically capture and analyze hand operations in the assembly process. In this paper, a detection-based tracking method is introduced to capture trajectories of hand movement from the camera installed in each workstation. Then, the actions in hand trajectories are identified with a novel temporal action localization model. The experimental results have proved that our method reached the application level with high accuracy and a low computational cost. The proposed system is lightweight enough to be quickly set up on an embedded computing device for real-time online inference and on a cloud server for offline analysis as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic laboratories should be a safe environment in which one can teach, learn, and conduct research. Sharing a common principle, the prevention of potential accidents and imminent injuries is a fundamental goal in the laboratory environments. In addition, academic laboratories are attributed exceptional responsibility to instill in students the culture of the safety, the basis of risk assessment, and of the exemplification of the prudent practices around energized objects. Undergraduate laboratory assignments may normally be framed based upon the repetition of established experiments and procedures, whereas academic research laboratories may involve new methodologies and/or apparatus, for which the hazards may not be completely known to the faculty and student researchers. Yet, the academic laboratory should be an environment free of electrical hazards for both routine experiments and research endeavors, and faculty should offer practical inputs and safety-driven insights to academic administration to achieve such a paramount objective. In this article, the authors discuss the challenges to electrical safety in modern academic laboratories, where users may be exposed to harmful touch voltages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of adaptive drives in working units of various technological and mobile machines is considered. The results of theoretical and experimental research have proved the effectiveness of their use for improving the dynamic characteristics of machines, reducing unproductive power losses during their operation.

This paper constructs an integrated virtual reconfiguration model that can simultaneously group workstations, schedule virtual cells, and select energy consumption levels. If managers prefer the physical proximity of machines in a certain virtual cell, the material handling cost in it can be reduced. However, the distances among machines in other virtual cells are probably large, which may cause greater material handling cost. If a virtual cell for a certain product type has priority to be created, the backorder cost of that type can be decreased or even avoided. Nevertheless, the creation of virtual cells for other product types may be delayed, perhaps leading to the higher backorder cost of other product types. In addition, managers can choose a high energy consumption level of a machine to expedite its production to reduce backorder cost at the expense of more energy consumption cost. To minimize the total operational cost, we develop a novel Discrete Imperialist Competitive Algorithm with a Priority rule-based heuristic (DICAP). It includes a colony movement strategy, a competition strategy, a collapse mechanism, a development strategy, and a sufficient convergence policy. Numerical experiments and t-test are conducted to validate that the proposed DICAP outperforms genetic algorithm and simulated annealing. Note to Practitioners—Virtual cellular manufacturing systems can create an expectation of improving machine utilization and productivity, reducing reconfiguration cost, and adaptation to product specification changes in reality. However, managers often feel difficult to make appropriate decisions for three interrelated issues, i.e., workstation grouping, virtual cell creation and release, and energy consumption options. Workstation grouping depends on the availability of machines and workers, and the availability may be related to the creation and release time of some virtual cells. Whether a virtual cell is created in time has an influence on the selection of energy consumption levels, because managers need to consider both backorder cost and energy consumption cost. In addition, there often exists a bottleneck workstation in each virtual cell. Therefore, it is essential and worthwhile to select appropriate energy consumption levels of machines to smooth the production efficiency of grouped workstations. To effectively address the issues, this paper presents an integrated virtual reconfiguration model. A novel Discrete Imperialist Competitive Algorithm with a Priority rule-based heuristic is developed to minimize the total operational cost. Numerical experiments and t-test results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms two commonly used ones, i.e., genetic algorithm and simulated annealing in solution quality. It is suitable for virtual reconfiguration problem with industrial size in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frame technology became a leading provider of technical publishing software within two years of its founding in 1986. Frame went public in February 1992, and by the end of that year, its flagship software, FrameMaker, ran on Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, and all leading Unix workstations of that era. It was used by thousands of high-tech companies around the globe. The company was acquired by Adobe Systems in 1995 at a valuation of approximately $500 million. This paper is a personal remembrance by the founder who co-wrote FrameMaker 1.0, and lead Frame's product design and product strategy through its IPO. It tells Frame's founding story, and describes the key product and architectural features that contributed to its success. This paper also briefly describes Frame's early funding model, business and sales strategies, and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For proactive responses to customer requirements and rapidly advancing technologies, current manufacturing systems are required to be increasingly adaptable and reconfigurable. We present a communication framework between the coordinator, workstation agents, and executors to facilitate the reconfiguration process of manufacturing systems. The message structure of interagent information exchange is extended for the initiation, self-layout recognition, and control program update phases of reconfiguration. To provide more autonomy to a manufacturing system and to synchronize the updated shop floor condition, a self-layout recognition mechanism was developed based on infrared communication that enables each workstation to identify directly linked workstations and share the identified information with other shop floor entities for automatic layout change detection. Furthermore, we propose a message-based reprogramming approach to quickly update, insert, or delete command lines in the existing control program for a specific device in a workstation. We demonstrate a reconfiguration process via the communication framework in a factory testbed consisting of nine main workstations in a laboratory environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Producao Online is the property of Associacao Brasileira de Engenharia de Producao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

BACKGROUND: Electric adjustable height desks (EAHD) have been promoted as an opportunity for desk based workers to stand at work but there is limited evidence that they have an effect on light physical activity. OBJECTIVE: The main objective was to determine if there would be a change in light physical activity with the introduction of EAHD. The secondary objective was to assess if there was an associated change in leisure time activity. METHODS: Activity levels were measured by step counts, self-reported activity levels and pre- and post-trial recall levels. Statistical analysis of the data was performed with the software R. Generalised linear models were fitted to the data. A Poisson regression was used for count data. Statistical hypotheses were deemed significant if their p values were less than 0.05. RESULTS: There was a significant (p < 0.001) effect on step counts associated with allocation of EAHD and a significant (p < 0.001) increase in self-reported activity for the Intervention (EAHD) group. Having an EAHD was associated with increased activity during leisure (p = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS: Activity levels, especially light physical activity, were significantly increased with the allocation of an electric adjustable height desk. This pilot study showed that the environmental change of introduction of electric adjustable height desks into an office workplace can increase physical activity and reduce sitting durations. There is limited evidence that the increase in work activity has a positive impact on leisure time activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of computer has been widely increased. This intensifies the risk of musculoskeletal disorders on long-term office workers. This study aims to find out the characteristics of musculoskeletal disorders in office workers with computer workstation which then lead to the presence or absence of the correlation between the two in order to avoid the pains endured. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study carried out from September–November 2014 in Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia. Seventeen samples were obtained from three different departments (finance and academics) by total sampling. The data was collected by validated questionnaire and it was analyzed by using simple linear regression method. Results: From 17 samples in total, 16 claimed that their workstation needs to be evaluated. Furthermore, the prevalent areas of musculoskeletal were shoulders (12 persons), lower back (10 persons), neck (9 persons), knee (9 persons), upper back (7 persons). The analysis using simple linear regression method showed no significant correlation between workstation characteristics and musculoskeletal disorders (p-value = 0.515). Conclusions: There is no correlation found between workstation characteristics and musculoskeletal disorders.

Most of the families of a village Mangali in Hisar block of Haryana are involved in production of wooden beads for decades. The production process is a joint effort made by both male and female members of the family. However the works done by male members start from procurement of wood to making of beads till their marketing whereas women work to string the beads for whole days and give them finishing looks for selling in not more than 50-100 rupees per day that too only if work is available in abundance. Even the male members only get a limited selling price as all the benefits are secured by the middlemen. The women also face physiological hazards and musculoskeletal discomforts for doing all the works sitting on floor in a bending posture. The plight of the women is so high that even after the long day seasonal field works, they are sitting over floors in a bent posture which is causing them discomforts over the body for next many days. The activities performed by the women which are related to beads are numerous in nature like jewellery, crafts, etc, and hence the postures. Squatting and cross legged are the major postures that are observed among the women in forward-bent condition and which cause them further musculoskeletal disorders. A workstation having the facilities regarding back support, eye-level works, wrist support, storage and light requirements is suggested. The multipurpose workstation can help the women to healthy work not for the bead works only but also for other housing chores to speed the activities and enhance the productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An automated transfer line balancing problem is investigated in this paper. The line produces a complex part at a high volume, such as cylinder heads, and incorporates identical machines that can be operated under different cutting conditions. The selection of cutting conditions significantly influences productivity and the cost of the transfer line. The production of cylinder heads requires machining different operations within a given takt time and satisfying precedence, inclusion, and exclusion relationships. The operations are located on different faces of the cylinder head and are processed by different cutting tools. The line balancing problem is studied to identify the optimal cutting conditions, number of machines and tools, and machining sequence of operations. The objective is to design a balanced transfer line at a minimum machining and tooling cost, and also with minimum nonproductive time. The problem is represented by a goal-programming model and solved for small transfer line configurations through linearization. An improved cuckoo search algorithm via Levy flight is developed to solve large-scale instances. Results of the cuckoo algorithm are promising since it reached optimal and close-to-optimal solutions to small problems and surpassed the results of a random local search approach for instances of medium and large problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global competition and reduced profit margins often push modern manufacturing systems toward continuously operating close to their full capacity. This can cause additional stress on the components and even lead to their premature failure, which could in turn result in halt in operation, inventory buildup, potential waste, and possible need for component replacement. Sustainability has often been viewed as utilization of renewable and green energy. However, this paper puts forth an integrated framework for optimal asset and energy management in a manufacturing plant in order to promote sustainable operation. An operation strategy has been devised that minimizes the risk of component failure on the rest of the system, the operation cost, the emissions, as well as material waste due to unwanted postprocess inventory buildup. The problem formulation is nonlinear and mixed-integer in nature, with multiple objectives that at times can be contradictory. Hence, a goal programming approach is used in order to ensure that all objectives are given equal priority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Semiconductor manufacturing processes often come with stringent requirements for product quality. In order to satisfy these requirements, time window constraints have been imposed. Typically, violation of the time windows can result in a lot being either reworked or scrapped. The presence of overlapped time window constraints renders the control of production lines very challenging as it involves managing the production process of many lots across multiple workstations. We study the performance of a production line with deterministic service times and predetermined, overlapped time windows. We solve the P|rj|C\max problem to estimate the queue time at each workstation, and develop an algorithm to decide whether a new lot can be released for processing at its first workstation so as to meet all time window constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world where products get obsolescent ever more quickly, discarded devices produce million tons of electronic waste. Improving how end-of-life products are dismantled helps reduce this waste, as resources are conserved and fed back into the supply chain, thereby promoting reuse and recycling. This paper presents the Extremal MultiObjective Genetic Algorithm (EMOGA), a hybrid nature-inspired optimization technique for a multiobjective version of the disassembly line balancing problem. The aim is to minimize the number of workstations, and to maximize profit and disassembly depth, when dismounting products in disassembly lines. EMOGA is a Pareto-based genetic algorithm hybridized with a module based on extremal optimization, which uses a tailored mutation operator and a continuous relaxation-based seeding technique. The experiments involved the disassembly of a hammer drill and a microwave oven. Performance evaluation was carried out by comparing EMOGA to various efficient algorithms. The results showed that EMOGA is faster or gets closer to the Pareto front, or both, in all comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A great deal of previous work has studied methods to determine system reliability. That work has defined system reliability as the probability that the production output meets a predetermined demand for a network with many workstations, each of which has random capacity determined by a discrete probability distribution. It is noteworthy that the archival work presents numerous examples, wherein entities are discrete and indivisible, while the analysis is based upon continuous flow, much like a fluid, through the network. The inconsistency, inherent in mixing discrete-entity examples with continuous-flow analysis, can result in erroneous conclusions about the system reliability. The current paper presents a rigorous discrete-analysis analytical approach, which is called the Song rule (Stochastic “Output $\geq$ demand” Networks and their Generation). Based on all examples studied in this paper, the absolute difference ratios between the previous incorrect (as published) and the correct probabilities (from the Song rule) are all greater than 23%. The proposed Song rule analysis is verified to be correct using discrete-event simulation. In addition to providing rigorous analysis for the network problems under consideration, the Song rule is a useful tool for assessing the validity of any future proposed approach for other stochastic reliability problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Radiology and pathology are unique among other clinical specialties that incorporate telemedicine technologies into clinical practice, as, for the most part in traditional practice, there are few or no direct patient encounters. The majority of teleradiology and telepathology involves viewing images, which is exactly what occurs without the “tele” component. The images used are generally quite large, require dedicated displays and software for viewing, and present challenges to the clinician who must navigate through the presented data to render a diagnostic decision or interpretation. This digital viewing environment is very different from the more traditional reading environment (i.e., film and microscopy), necessitating a new look at how to optimize reading environments and address human factors issues. This paper will review some of the key components that need to be optimized for effective and efficient practice of teleradiology and telepathology using traditional workstations as well as some of the newer mobile viewing applications.

This paper considers a method for accelerating finite-element simulations of electromagnetic problems on a workstation using graphics processing units (GPUs). The focus is on finite-element formulations using higher order elements and tetrahedral meshes that lead to sparse matrices too large to be dealt with on a typical workstation using direct methods. We discuss the problem of rapid matrix generation and assembly, as well as accelerating preconditioned iterative solvers in the context of limited on-board GPU memory, and we show how to mitigate some of these problems using multiple GPUs. We propose a new fast data-distribution technique for multi-GPU platforms that allows optimal splitting of finite-element method (FEM) matrices between graphics accelerators. The technique draws upon the graph partitioning approach used in nonoverlapping domain-decomposition methods and provides information that drives the FEM matrix-generation and assembly process in such a way that it produces data structures for each GPU; this not only ensures load balancing and minimizes communication between GPUs, but also reflects the hierarchy of the basis functions. The concepts proposed in this paper are illustrated with examples involving sparse matrices of up to 13.9 million rows and over a billion nonzero elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) is a process of connecting various electronic components through printed circuit boards (PCBs). Due to the need to assemble a lot of components and PCBs at the same time, the PCBA process tends to become the bottleneck in an assembly line. Many assembly firms have thus introduced automated PCBA machines to expedite this process. However, to best operate these machines, effective PCBA planning is still required. Some nature-inspired metaheuristics such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithm (GA) have been increasingly used for the PCBA planning. Also, we find that particle swarm optimization (PSO) has never been employed to deal with the feeder assignment problem (FAP) and component sequencing problem (CSP) at the same time, though it has been regarded as a good competitor to GAs. In this paper, we developed two PSO-based approaches to deal with the two problems simultaneously for a chip shooter machine. In addition, we have conducted experiments to compare the two PSO-based approaches with two GA-based approaches. The experimental results showed that PSO2, the PSO-based approach with sigmoid functions, outperformed others in terms of assembly cycle time. The comparison with an exact approach further shows that PSO2 has a high rate to find the optimal/near-optimal solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: USP <797> regulatory requirements have mandated that pharmacies improve aseptic techniques and cleanliness of the medication preparation areas. In addition, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) recommends that technology and automation be used as much as possible for preparing and verifying compounded sterile products. Objective: To determine the benefits associated with the implementation of the workflow management system, such as reducing medication preparation and delivery errors, reducing quantity and frequency of medication errors, avoiding costs, and enhancing the organization's decision to move toward positive patient identification (PPID). Methods: At Texas Children's Hospital, data were collected and analyzed from January 2014 through August 2014 in the pharmacy areas in which the workflow management system would be implemented. Data were excluded for September 2014 during the workflow management system oral liquid implementation phase. Data were collected and analyzed from October 2014 through June 2015 to determine whether the implementation of the workflow management system reduced the quantity and frequency of reported medication errors. Data collected and analyzed during the study period included the quantity of doses prepared, number of incorrect medication scans, number of doses discontinued from the workflow management system queue, and the number of doses rejected. Data were collected and analyzed to identify patterns of incorrect medication scans, to determine reasons for rejected medication doses, and to determine the reduction in wasted medications. Results: During the 17-month study period, the pharmacy department dispensed 1,506,220 oral liquid and injectable medication doses. From October 2014 through June 2015, the pharmacy department dispensed 826,220 medication doses that were prepared and checked via the workflow management system. Of those 826,220 medication doses, there were 16 reported incorrect volume errors. The error rate after the implementation of the workflow management system averaged 8.4%, which was a 1.6% reduction. After the implementation of the workflow management system, the average number of reported oral liquid medication and injectable medication errors decreased to 0.4 and 0.2 times per week, respectively. Conclusion: The organization was able to achieve its purpose and goal of improving the provision of quality pharmacy care through optimal medication use and safety by reducing medication preparation errors. Error rates decreased and the workflow processes were streamlined, which has led to seamless operations within the pharmacy department. There has been significant cost avoidance and waste reduction and enhanced interdepartmental satisfaction due to the reduction of reported medication errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An archive is a location containing a collection of records, documents, or other materials of historical importance. An integral part of Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) is archiving. When a hospital needs to migrate a PACS vendor, the complete earlier data need to be migrated in the format of the newly procured PACS. It is both time and money consuming. To address this issue, the new concept of vendor neutral archive (VNA) has emerged. A VNA simply decouples the PACS and workstations at the archival layer. This is achieved by developing an application engine that receives, integrates, and transmits the data using the different syntax of a Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) format. Transferring the data belonging to the old PACS to a new one is performed by a process called migration of data. In VNA, a number of different data migration techniques are available to facilitate transfer from the old PACS to the new one, the choice depending on the speed of migration and the importance of data. The techniques include simple DICOM migration, prefetch-based DICOM migration, medium migration, and the expensive non-DICOM migration. "Vendor neutral" may not be a suitable term, and "architecture neutral," "PACS neutral," "content neutral," or "third-party neutral" are probably better and preferred terms. Notwithstanding this, the VNA acronym has come to stay in both the medical IT user terminology and in vendor nomenclature, and radiologists need to be aware of its impact in PACS across the globe.

Computers are an integral part of modern radiology practice. They are used in different radiology modalities to acquire, process, and postprocess imaging data. They have had a dramatic influence on contemporary radiology practice. Their impact has extended further with the emergence of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), Radiology information system (RIS) technology, and Teleradiology. A basic overview of computer hardware relevant to radiology practice is presented here. The key hardware components in a computer are the motherboard, central processor unit (CPU), the chipset, the random access memory (RAM), the memory modules, bus, storage drives, and ports. The personnel computer (PC) has a rectangular case that contains important components called hardware, many of which are integrated circuits (ICs). The fiberglass motherboard is the main printed circuit board and has a variety of important hardware mounted on it, which are connected by electrical pathways called "buses". The CPU is the largest IC on the motherboard and contains millions of transistors. Its principal function is to execute "programs". A Pentium® 4 CPU has transistors that execute a billion instructions per second. The chipset is completely different from the CPU in design and function; it controls data and interaction of buses between the motherboard and the CPU. Memory (RAM) is fundamentally semiconductor chips storing data and instructions for access by a CPU. RAM is classified by storage capacity, access speed, data rate, and configuration.

Computers are an integral part of modern radiology practice. They are used in different radiology modalities to acquire, process, and postprocess imaging data. They have had a dramatic influence on contemporary radiology practice. Their impact has extended further with the emergence of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS), Radiology information system (RIS) technology, and Teleradiology. A basic overview of computer hardware relevant to radiology practice is presented here. The key hardware components in a computer are the motherboard, central processor unit (CPU), the chipset, the random access memory (RAM), the memory modules, bus, storage drives, and ports. The personnel computer (PC) has a rectangular case that contains important components called hardware, many of which are integrated circuits (ICs). The fiberglass motherboard is the main printed circuit board and has a variety of important hardware mounted on it, which are connected by electrical pathways called "buses". The CPU is the largest IC on the motherboard and contains millions of transistors. Its principal function is to execute "programs". A Pentium® 4 CPU has transistors that execute a billion instructions per second. The chipset is completely different from the CPU in design and function; it controls data and interaction of buses between the motherboard and the CPU. Memory (RAM) is fundamentally semiconductor chips storing data and instructions for access by a CPU. RAM is classified by storage capacity, access speed, data rate, and configuration.

With the advent of recent technological advances, more demanding tele-immersive applications have started to emerge. In the World Opera application, artists from different opera houses across the globe can participate in a single united performance, and interact almost as if they were co-located. One of the main design challenges in this application domain is to assess to what extent the inevitable failures of some of the numerous and complex hardware, software, and network components affect the quality of experience for the user. This challenge cannot be addressed by traditional system-centric methods for dependability evaluation, which do not take personalized user perspective into account when considering meaningful and acceptable degradation of services. In this paper, we propose a novel method to assess the quality of experience in presence of failures, based on a new metric called perceived reliability. The method takes the human perspective into account and allows considering factors such as human perception of video and audio, characteristics of the audience, as well as performance elements and artistic content. This method can help system designers and engineers compare architectural variants and determine the dependability budget. We show the feasibility of our method by applying it to a World Opera performance. To this end, we construct a SAN-based model and run simulations in the Möbius framework. The obtained results provide useful guidelines for system engineers towards improving the quality of experience of World Opera performances despite the presence of failures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Raymond (Ray) Tomlinson was a computer engineer best known for developing the TENEX operating system and implemented the first email program on the Arpanet system in 1971. In its official biography, the Internet Hall of Fame states that "Tomlinson's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate." This interview is the second in a two-part Annals series based on an oral history conducted by Marc Weber and Gardner Hendrie for the Computer History Museum (CHM) in June 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For a hybrid flow shop (HFS), due to the maintenance, partial failure, and possibility of failure, the number of machines at a workstation presents multiple levels, meaning that capacity of each workstation is stochastic. This study considers the stochastic capacity of each workstation and proposes a performance index based on system reliability to measure the probability that the HFS can complete demand d within time constraint T. The HFS is modeled as a stochastic-flow network, in which each arc is regarded as a workstation with stochastic capacity and each node as a buffer. An algorithm is then developed to find the lower capacity vectors that satisfy (d, T) and system reliability is evaluated. In addition, a practical example of an IC card manufacturing system is utilized to illustrate the proposed algorithm and show that such an index can provide enough information for managers to make decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fierce global competition and reduced profit margins are forcing many manufacturing plants to maximize their operational efficiency. This includes the consumption of energy across the plant as well as the inventory buildup. To reduce the cost of energy purchased from the electric utility, the plant operator may use the available on-site generation or reschedule the operation of one or more workstations so that the plant is less heavily operational during peak-load hours when the price of electricity is high. All this must be done while considering the interdependencies between various workstations as well as the target production level (and possible penalties in case it is not met). These factors turn the energy management problem into a constrained optimization one where the operational constraints of the workstations, the capacity limits of available energy resources, and the financial information are all taken into account. Developing such a solution is the focus of this current paper. A nonlinear mixed-integer optimization problem is formulated here that tries to optimize the performance of an industrial plant subject to the above operational and technical constraints. The problem is solved for two scenarios, when the reverse power injection by the plant is allowed and when it is not. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stroke survivors often have upper limb (UL) hemiparesis, limiting their ability to perform activities of daily life (ADLs). Intensive, task-oriented exercise therapy (ET) can improve UL function, but motivation to perform sufficient ET is difficult to maintain. Here, we report on a trial in which a workstation was deployed in the homes of chronic stroke survivors to enable tele-coaching of ET in the guise of computer games. Participants performed six weeks of 1 h/day, five days/week ET. Hand opening and grasp were assisted with functional electrical stimulation (FES). The primary outcome measure was the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT). Secondary outcome measures included a quantitative test of UL function performed on the workstation, grasp force measurements and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Improvements were seen in the functional tests, but surprisingly, not in the TMS responses. An important finding was that participants commencing with intermediate functional scores improved the most. Conclusions: 1) Daily, tele-supervised FES-ET in chronic stroke survivors is feasible with commercially-available technology. 2) The intervention can significantly improve UL function, particularly in people who start with an intermediate level of function. 3) Significant improvements in UL function can occur in the absence of changes in TMS responses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]