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Model predictive flux control (MPFC) is an alternative control solution to the classic model predictive torque control (MPTC) for driving induction motors (IMs) without the complexity of tuning the weighting factors. However, when applied in motor drives fed by a two-level converter, it results in higher flux and torque ripples. To improve its performance, this article proposes a virtual three-level MPFC (V3-MPFC) method. The virtual vector method increases the total number of voltage vectors crucial for improving the closed-loop performances of the model predictive control. To reduce the computational burden, direct torque control and novel deadbeat (DB) control strategies are proposed. Compared with existing methods, the proposed DB-based method reduces V3-MPFC to a suboptimization problem and still ensures that the suboptimal solution is equivalent to the global optimal solution provided by V3-MPFC. In addition, the redundant states are exploited to lower the switching frequency (SF) without extending the cost function. The simulation and experiment results show that, compared with existing methods, the proposed strategy effectively reduces the flux and torque ripples, and requires a lower SF and execution time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) benefits significantly from investments in transport infrastructure such as road, railway and port, but not as much from investments in non-transport infrastructure such as real estate. However, using data collected from several sources, including secondary data on the number of infrastructure projects already invested and earmarked to be invested as well as China's direct foreign investment to Southeast Asia, this analysis shows that non-transport infrastructure constitutes a substantially higher proportion of the total infrastructure investments in Southeast Asia than transport infrastructure since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This points to a suboptimization polemic emanating from the mismatch between the injlows of the diferent types of infrastructure investments and ASEAN's need for these inputs for sustainable economic growth. Domestic disharmony, regional rivalry and political conflicts between China and ASEAN as well as other obstacles such as the debt-trap worries reduce the total investment flows to Southeast Asia, exacerbating the suboptimization problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that you can be permitted to discount the interests of your adversaries even though doing so would be impartially suboptimal. This means that, in addition to the kinds of moral options that the literature traditionally recognises, there exist what I call other‐sacrificing options. I explore the idea that you cannot discount the interests of your adversaries as much as you can favour the interests of your intimates; if this is correct, then there is an asymmetry between negative partiality toward your adversaries and positive partiality toward your intimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcriptional enhancers direct precise gene expression patterns during development and harbor the majority of variants associated with phenotypic diversity, evolutionary adaptations, and disease. Pinpointing which enhancer variants contribute to changes in gene expression and phenotypes is a major challenge. Here, we find that suboptimal or low-affinity binding sites are necessary for precise gene expression during heart development. Single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) can optimize the affinity of ETS binding sites, causing gain-of-function (GOF) gene expression, cell migration defects, and phenotypes as severe as extra beating hearts in the marine chordate Ciona robusta. In human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes, a SNV within a human GATA4 enhancer increases ETS binding affinity and causes GOF enhancer activity. The prevalence of suboptimal-affinity sites within enhancers creates a vulnerability whereby affinity-optimizing SNVs can lead to GOF gene expression, changes in cellular identity, and organismal-level phenotypes that could contribute to the evolution of novel traits or diseases. [Display omitted] • Low-affinity binding sites are prevalent within developmental heart enhancers • Single-nucleotide variants that increase ETS affinity drive excess enhancer activity • Affinity-optimizing enhancer variants disrupt heart development Jindal et al. show that low-affinity ETS sites are critical for tissue-specific enhancer activity within the developing heart. Single-nucleotide variants can increase binding affinity, causing gain-of-function enhancer activity that disrupts heart development. These findings have implications for understanding how enhancer variants alter phenotypes in health, evolution, and disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the problem of finding a fixed point for a special class of piecewise-constant mappings of a simplex into itself which arise in connection with the search for equilibrium prices in the classical exchange model and its various versions. The consideration is based on the polyhedral complementarity which is a natural generalization of linear complementarity. Here we study the mappings arising from models with fixed budgets. Mappings of this class possess a special property of monotonicity (logarithmic monotonicity), which makes it possible to prove that they are potential. We show that the problem of finding fixed points of these mappings is reducible to optimization problems for which it is possible to propose finite suboptimization algorithms.We give description of two algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salesforce decisions consist of a series of interrelated processes including (1) determining the role of personal selling in the organization, (2) allocating selling effort to customers, geographic areas, or products, (3) setting salesforce size, (4) designing sales territories, and (5) managing the salesforce. Efforts to develop quantitative models for these decision areas have been hindered by the complex interactions among the areas. Attempts to isolate these decision areas for model simplification have resulted in considerable suboptimization. A multistage decision model is presented which treats the salesforce decision areas as an aggregate decision process consisting of a series of interrelated stages. Model decisions are based on a response function which relates sales in a control unit to the many determinants of performance including potential, workload, company effort, salesman quality and experience, and prior soles history. The use of an extremely fast dynamic programming algorithm for the allocation of selling time to control units is demonstrated and the interaction between model and manager is emphasized. Model output indicates the optimum salesforce size and provides a basis for designing soles territories. Use of the model in forecasting and performance evaluation also is discussed. The model is general in that it can be applied to most companies employing a field salesforce. The results of a promising application are presented. Reaction of sales management in the test firm indicates that made I output is very useful in identifying problem areas, evaluating salesmen, and modifying territorial design to achieve the optimal allocation of selling effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transfer-pricing systems within corporations differ among industrial nations; no one system is ideal for all organizations. Consideration of such a system should include its effects on incentive within the company as well as its usefulness in transferring information. Variation of transfer-pricing patterns according to the country of operation also is an important consideration for multinational corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in the theory of the provision of public goods by local governments has generally started with the assumption that the decisions of each local jurisdiction are based only on the costs and benefits accruing to its own citizens.1 Yet, the implications of this assumption for methods of conducting cost-benefit analysis by local governments have seldom been mentioned. This paper describes the ways in which this assumed suboptimizing behavior of local governments implies procedures of cost-benefit analysis at the local level which differ from many standard procedures that have been developed for federal-level decisions. In particular, the unique aspects of the cost side of the analysis will be stressed, since local government benefit evaluation problems have received relatively more attention by other authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the advantages of foreign borrowing by multinational corporations in the United States to finance their foreign subsidiaries in host countries. American international business enterprises should have each subsidiary adopt a financial structure based on local norms and local cash flow patterns in the host country. The advantages of a localized financial structure include: a positive effect on the U.S. balance of payments program; and less exposure to foreign exchange risk by minimizing the dollar investment base. Foreign environmental variables, suboptimization when the consolidated balance sheet does not conform to the American industry norm, and the influence of industry and country norms on financial structure are mentioned, as well as data showing debt ratios.

The transportation products of High-Speed Rail (HSR) are perishable and non-storable, thus their demand which fluctuates in certain regular patterns differs at various periods. Depending on the characteristics at different periods, the differential pricing can be implemented to enhance business income effectively, as well as achieve optimization of social welfare. In this paper, we adopt the theory of Ramsey suboptimal pricing, and build a subtime pricing model of high-speed rail based on the operation cost and weights of peak and off-peak periods. On the basis of operation cost estimation on different operating frequency, and demand function fitting with questionnaire data, we conduct the parameter simulation on the effectiveness of sub-time pricing scheme, in comparison with the effectiveness of uniform pricing scheme. The result shows the dual improvement of both business profits and social welfare, and the effectiveness is increasing with the operating frequency at peak period. Therefore, the sub-time pricing model is applicable, and contributes to directing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estratégia (RIAE) is the property of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estrategia/UNINOVE 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.)

Electromagnetic (EM) optimization is an essential part of an EM design cycle. In this paper, for the first time, a decomposition method is formulated to address the challenges of EM optimization with many design variables. Single large EM optimization is decomposed into multiple smaller suboptimizations to improve the optimization efficiency. In practical EM optimizations, there are no two design variables whose effect on the output response is completely independent. We propose a decomposition method, which uses the second-order derivative information to measure the level of dependence (measure of interaction) between the design variables and thereby identify, separate, and group the design variables to form multiple smaller suboptimizations. Each suboptimization includes generating multiple fine model responses for constructing the surrogate model and its optimization using trust region. Multiple suboptimizations are formulated to be independent, so that parallel computations can be exploited to evaluate concurrent suboptimization updates. The resultant vector, a combined vector of suboptimization updates, will be closer to the optimal solution. Furthermore, the step size of the optimization update in the proposed approach is much larger in comparison with the step size of the optimization update without decomposition. Using this approach, the overall large optimization update decreases the value of the objective function more efficiently and quickly. Two examples of EM optimization are used to illustrate the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article tackles the inability of a modern organization to achieve a goal because of the gaps in its operational performance. Topics include the exploration the gap analysis through a historical idiom, the existence of operational performance in a hidden factory such as lack of insight, resistance to change, and suboptimization, and the examples of capability gaps that can detect and measure gaps such as repeating delays in completing a task, low productivity, and unsustainable efforts.

Recent socioeconomic changes have created and intensified paradoxical organizational tensions that companies in numerous industries, including the construction sector, need to address when organizing and managing their activities. The nature of these tensions has not been sufficiently explored in the existing construction management literature. Thus, this study analyzes tensions between control and flexibility at different organizational interfaces, as perceived by the managers of three large infrastructure projects that were parts of two different megaprojects in Sweden. The empirical findings highlight several tensions within three types of interfaces, that is, external, intraorganizational, and interorganizational tensions, that are important for both project managers and project owners to understand. This paper contributes to the project and construction management literature by illustrating the importance of a systemic paradox perspective, which is obtained by combining the paradox literature and principal-agent theory. A systemic paradox perspective is required to understand how tensions between control and flexibility are interpreted by different parties and how tensions in different organizational interfaces are interrelated and may be addressed to avoid suboptimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an increasing deployment of plug-in electric vehicles, evaluating and mitigating the impacts of additional electrical loads created by these vehicles on power distribution grids become more important. This paper explores the use of prices of electricity at public charging stations as an instrument, in couple of road pricing, to better manage both power distribution and urban transportation networks. More specifically, a multi-class combined distribution and assignment model is formulated to capture the spatial distribution of plug-in electric vehicles across the transportation network and estimate the electrical loads they impose on the power distribution network. Power flow equations are subsequently solved to estimate real power losses. Prices of electricity at public charging stations and road tolls are then optimized to minimize both real power losses in the distribution grid and total travel time in the urban transportation network. The pricing model is formulated as a mathematical program with complementarity constraints and solved by a manifold suboptimization algorithm and a pattern search method. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the proposed model and solution algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcriptional enhancers direct precise on-off patterns of gene expression during development. To explore the basis for this precision, we conducted a high-throughput analysis of the Otx-a enhancer, which mediates expression in the neural plate of Ciona embryos in response to fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling and a localized GATA determinant. We provide evidence that enhancer specificity depends on submaximal recognition motifs having reduced binding affinities ("suboptimization"). Native GATA and ETS (FGF) binding sites contain imperfect matches to consensus motifs. Perfect matches mediate robust but ectopic patterns of gene expression. The native sites are not arranged at optimal intervals, and subtle changes in their spacing alter enhancer activity. Multiple tiers of enhancer suboptimization produce specific, but weak, patterns of expression, and we suggest that clusters of weak enhancers, including certain "superenhancers," circumvent this trade-off in specificity and activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces three novel techniques for updating the invertible representation of the basis matrix when solving practical sparse linear programming problems using a high performance implementation of the dual revised simplex method, being of particular value when suboptimization is used. Two are variants of the product form update and the other permits multiple Forrest-Tomlin updates to be performed. Computational results show that one of the product form variants is significantly more efficient than the traditional approach, with its performance approaching that of the Forrest-Tomlin update for some problems. The other is less efficient, but valuable in the context of the dual revised simplex method with suboptimization. Results show that the multiple Forrest-Tomlin updates are performed with no loss of serial efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the association between debt maturity structure and accounting conservatism. Short-maturity debt can mitigate agency costs of debt arising from information asymmetry and suboptimal investment problems inherent in debt financing. As such, debt-contracting demand for accounting conservatism is expected to be lower in the presence of more short-maturity debt. We find that short-maturity debt is negatively associated with accounting conservatism. As firms could commit to more accounting conservatism to gain access to long-maturity debt, we conduct lead-lag tests of the direction of causality, and the results suggest that more short-maturity debt leads to less conservative reporting, rather than the reverse. We also find the negative relation between short-maturity debt and accounting conservatism is more pronounced among financially distressed firms, where ex ante severity of agency costs of debt are higher. Collectively, our results contribute to our understanding of the role of accounting conservatism in debt contracting and show how debt maturity, a key and pervasive feature of creditor protection in debt contracting, affects accounting conservatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an enzyme-catalytic nonlinear time-delay system is investigated to describe the batch culture of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD) by Klebsiella pneumoniae ( K. pneumoniae ), in which glycerol and 1,3-PD are assumed to pass the cell membrane by passive diffusion coupled with facilitated transport. The existence, uniqueness, boundness of solutions of the system and continuity of solutions with respect to the uncertain parameter appeared in the studied system are also discussed. The purpose of this article is to maximize the productivity of 1,3-PD at terminal time by controlling the initial value of the state vector and terminal time. With this in mind, taking the productivity of 1,3-PD at terminal time as the cost function and the initial concentration of biomass, glycerol, and terminal time as the control vectors, we firstly propose an optimal control model subject to the time-delay system and continuous state inequality constraints. To seek the optimal productivity of 1,3-PD at terminal time and the optimal control, a modified Nelder–Mead algorithm involved with the constraint transcription and smoothing techniques is then developed. Finally, the numerical results illustrate the appropriateness of the enzyme-catalytic nonlinear dynamic system and the validity of the optimization algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by retailers' frequent introduction of new items to refresh product lines and maintain their market shares, we present the assortment packing problem in which a firm must decide, in advance, the release date of each product in a given collection over a selling season. Our formulation models the trade-offs among profit margins, preference weights, and limited life cycles. A key aspect of the problem is that each product is short-lived in the sense that, once introduced, its attractiveness lasts only a few periods and vanishes over time. The objective is to determine when to introduce each product to maximize the total profit over the selling season. Even for two periods, the corresponding optimization problem is shown to be NP-complete. As a result, we study a continuous relaxation of the problem that approximates the problem well, when the number of products is large. When margins are identical and product preferences decay exponentially, its solution can be characterized: it is optimal to introduce products with slower decays earlier. The structural properties of the relaxation also help us to develop several heuristics, for which we establish performance guarantees. We test our heuristics with data on sales and release dates of women's handbags from an accessories retailer. The numerical experiments show that the heuristics perform very well and can yield significant improvements in profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sometimes being suboptimal is best. Cuts to the unit hypercube, as Balas and Jeroslow discuss [Balas E, Jeroslow R (1972) Canonical cuts on the unit hypercube. SIAM J. Appl. Math. 23(1):61-69], provide a simple approach to generating alternative optima and (or) providing a family of suboptimal solutions for one's clients to consider. In this paper, I discuss how to generate useful suboptimal solutions using Balas and Jeroslow's cuts to the unit hypercube and why clients are willing to pay for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on a Condorcetian common-values framework, this paper tackles the question of optimal committee formation within a community of finite size. Solving for the Bayesian information aggregation game yields some interesting normative results that emphasize the presence of informational externalities as root causes of suboptimally low voluntary participation levels in communal decision-making and the potentially Pareto-enhancing nature of drafting vis-à-vis decentralized mechanisms of self-selection. I firstly derive the optimal size of a committee based on the assumption of informative voting and, then, I show that it is globally optimal amongst all voting equilibrium strategies. I subsequently compare it to the various symmetric equilibria that may arise in a complete information setting or a Bayesian environment with heterogeneous private costs. I finally sketch out an optimal transfer scheme that can ex ante implement the socially efficient committee size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategy as Practice (S-as-P) sets studies in Organizational Strategy in a new perspective. This perspective assesses strategic activity in a sociological view of intersubjective ontology that permeates the meanings shared by social actors between organizational levels and organizations. The aim of this study was to examine how the individuals (owners, entrepreneurs, managers, salespeople and other social actors) in the commercial store cluster on Rua das Noivas in Sao Paulo/Brazil interact with the internal and external environment in order to make, influence and execute strategies through and between organizations and how these practices, which are socially embedded in a system of activities, whether legitimated or not, influence the structure of the cluster units that concomitantly influence and lead to the outcomes that promote the dynamic and longitudinal durability of the organizations in this cluster. The study was conducted in compliance with the qualitative assumptions of ethnographic research using the tool of covert recording highlighting the difficulties of research in the field. As results we can infer that Strategizing appears to occur in the interactions between the social actors in the cluster and its institutional context of rules and resources and the same time these constrain and enable the structural and multilevel adaptation of these actors as they seek legitimacy for their activities involve the dynamic adaptation of their ability to share meanings in the daily achievement of Strategizing embedded in the institutional dynamic context of the rituals, ceremonies and symbolism of the Institution of Marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reprint of the article "Early Punched Card Equipment: 1880-1951," by Emerson W. Pugh and Lars Heide, which appeared in the "IEEE Global History Network" is presented. In 1890, Herman Hollerith invented and developed the punched card tabulating equipment to process data from the U.S. Census Bureau. John S. Billings, a senior member of the technical team, encouraged Hollerith to study the mechanization of the census. Hollerith's patents on the system were issued in January 1889.

Topic modeling provides a powerful way to analyze the content of a collection of documents. It has become a popular tool in many research areas, such as text mining, information retrieval, natural language processing, and other related fields. In real-world applications, however, the usefulness of topic modeling is limited due to scalability issues. Scaling to larger document collections via parallelization is an active area of research, but most solutions require drastic steps, such as vastly reducing input vocabulary. In this article we introduce Regularized Latent Semantic Indexing (RLSI)--including a batch version and an online version, referred to as batch RLSI and online RLSI, respectively--to scale up topic modeling. Batch RLSI and online RLSI are as effective as existing topic modeling techniques and can scale to larger datasets without reducing input vocabulary. Moreover, online RLSI can be applied to stream data and can capture the dynamic evolution of topics. Both versions of RLSI formalize topic modeling as a problem of minimizing a quadratic loss function regularized by l1 and/or l2 norm. This formulation allows the learning process to be decomposed into multiple suboptimization problems which can be optimized in parallel, for example, via MapReduce. We particularly propose adopting l1 norm on topics and l2 norm on document representations to create a model with compact and readable topics and which is useful for retrieval. In learning, batch RLSI processes all the documents in the collection as a whole, while online RLSI processes the documents in the collection one by one. We also prove the convergence of the learning of online RLSI. Relevance ranking experiments on three TREC datasets show that batch RLSI and online RLSI perform better than LSI, PLSI, LDA, and NMF, and the improvements are sometimes statistically significant. Experiments on a Web dataset containing about 1.6 million documents and 7 million terms, demonstrate a similar boost in performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consistent with human gambling behavior but contrary to optimal foraging theory, pigeons show a strong preference for an alternative with low probability and high payoff (a gambling-like alternative) over an alternative with a greater net payoff (Zentall & Stagner, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 278, 1203-1208, ). In the present research, we asked whether humans would show suboptimal choice on a task involving choices with probabilities similar to those for pigeons. In Experiment 1, when we selected participants on the basis of their self-reported gambling activities, we found a significantly greater choice of the alternative involving low probability and high payoff (gambling-like alternative) than for a group that reported an absence of gambling activity. In Experiment 2, we found that when the inhibiting abilities of typical humans were impaired by a self-regulatory depletion manipulation, they were more likely to choose the gambling-like alternative. Taken together, the results suggest that this task is suitable for the comparative study of suboptimal decision-making behavior and the mechanisms that underlie it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the network co-ordinator of DESIS-Design for Social Innovation towards Sustainability, which links independent design labs in design schools and universities, Ezio Manzini plays a proactive part in promoting a creative and human-based approach to design. Here, he argues for accommodating the full range of human capability by designing 'error-friendly' systems. The illustrations present co-design activities promoted by DIS, a Unit of Research in the Indaco Department at the Politecnico di Milano. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In general, production oriented design (POD) and POD-checks are well-known, extensively discussed topics. Papers and books on these topics began to appear already in the 1970s. Nowadays, there are lots of powerful possibilities for POD and POD-checks. Nevertheless, car manufacturers are still confronted with challenges in these areas. Especially with respect to POD-checks, sustainable solutions that create transparency as far as existing possibilities are concerned are missing. It is often unclear which specific validation methods/tools exist in different departments. This is a critical situation. In connection with new projects, it is possible that suboptimal POD-checks are favoured due to missing transparency. In this paper, a new approach which can help to improve the situation is presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estratégia (RIAE) is the property of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estrategia/UNINOVE 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.)

As part of the daily life of the individual, as well as of any organization, the decision is a natural act of the people, and especially, of the managers. The work paper defines the concept of decision, decision-making stages, and ongoing decision-making process itself. Its scheme shows that the various stages of decision-making process, starting with generators facts, can be interlinked within a framework as a linear process. In reality, however, that facts generators is the bearer of a strategy in force and new facts are likely to arise during the decision process [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we study the optimal financing and dividend control in the dual model. Under some constraints, we firstly construct two categories of suboptimal models and identify the value functions and the optimal policies corresponding to these two categories of suboptimal models. Finally we identify the value function and present an optimal policy corresponding to the general optimal model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Clinical performance measures recommend that nondiabetic patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) be screened for diabetes every 3 years. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to report the prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes among U.S. adults aged ≥35 years with CHD and to determine factors associated with not receiving recommended diabetes screenings. Methods: The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is an annual state-based telephone survey of non-institutionalized U.S. adults. Information on prediabetes prevalence was collected for 33 states in 2008; data analysis was conducted in 2009. The prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes among adults aged ≥35 years with CHD (n=20,618) and prevalence of diabetes screening among nondiabetic adults with CHD (n=14,335) were assessed. Multivariate logistic regression was used to calculate the odds of not being screened for diabetes in the past 3 years while controlling for other factors. Results: Among adults with CHD, 30.7% (95% CI=29.4%, 32.1%) reported being diagnosed with diabetes and 10.0% (95% CI=9.2%, 10.8%) reported prediabetes. Among nondiabetic adults with CHD, 25.4% (95% CI=23.9%, 26.9%) reported not being screened for diabetes in the past 3 years. Those with no recent routine checkup and those with no health insurance had the highest odds of no recent diabetes screening. Conclusions: The prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes is substantial among adults with CHD and likely underestimated because of suboptimal screening. One of four nondiabetic adults with CHD reported not being screened for diabetes in the past 3 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between organizational pride and purpose for the success of an organization. It states that a team should integrate purpose with pride to develop realistic goals and measures of success. It contends that successful companies focus on people, strategy and relationship, thus, resulting to top business results. It also mentions various steps on how to create a purpose statement.

Abstract: Congestion tolls are considered to be Pareto-improving if they reduce travel delay or improve social benefit and ensure that, when compared to the situation without any tolling intervention, no user is worse off in terms of travel cost measured, e.g., in units of time. The problem of finding Pareto-improving tolls can be formulated as a mathematical program with complementarity constraints, a class of optimization problems difficult to solve. Using concepts from manifold suboptimization, we propose a new algorithm that converges to a strongly stationary solution in a finite number of iterations. The algorithm is also applicable to the problem of finding approximate Pareto-improving tolls and can address the cases where demands are either fixed or elastic. Numerical results using networks from the literature are also given. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper is devoted to the study of a new notion of linear suboptimality in constrained mathematical programming. This concept is different from conventional notions of solutions to optimization-related problems, while seems to be natural and significant from the viewpoint of modern variational analysis and applications. In contrast to standard notions, it admits complete characterizations via appropriate constructions of generalized differentiation in nonconvex settings. In this paper we mainly focus on various classes of mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints (MPECs), whose principal role has been well recognized in optimization theory and its applications. Based on robust generalized differential calculus, we derive new results giving pointwise necessary and sufficient conditions for linear suboptimality in general MPECs and its important specifications involving variational and quasivariational inequalities, implicit complementarity problems, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manner in which we teach, learn, and apply operations research has evolved steadily over the last two decades. Students and instructors alike appreciate the accessibility to technology both within and outside of the classroom. However, with such easy solution finding technology we risk the inculcation of a “right answer” mentality. How do we prepare ourselves and our students for the real possibility of the easy and powerful technology providing us with a wrong right answer? Is the wrong right answer such a bad thing? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Differences in antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) strategies, evidences supporting the benefits of ASPs, barriers to implementing ASPs, and suggestions for overcoming the barriers are discussed. Summary. Developing and implementing an SP can facilitate more judicious use of antimicrobials. Prior authorization and prospective audit with feedback are two distinct methods of ASPs. Supplemental and combined strategies of ASPs also exist. Tangible benefits have been demonstrated with using ASPs, such as a reduction in antimicrobial consumption and reductions in costs. In addition, reduced use of certain antimicrobial agents has been correlated with reduction in antimicrobial resistance. Most importantly, ASP implementation may increase patient safety with minimization of antimicrobial-related medication errors such as unnecessary or duplicate antimicrobial use. However, barriers to ASP implementation exist such as acquiring funding for an ASP, a lack of pharmacy leadership supporting ASPs, a shortage of adequately trained infectious disease physicians and pharmacists, competition for funding with other programs in the hospital, and communicating with antagonizing colleagues. Conclusion. In the setting of increasing antimicrobial resistance, ASPs provide a formalized, practical, and manageable approach to improving the use of antimicrobials in our health care systems where their use is widespread and often suboptimal. Governmental agencies that require institutions to practice some form of antimicrobial stewardship can be the means to incentivize institutions to allocate resources for such programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, based on the Grey theory, a novel measurement method in a large volume and high dimension of information system is proposed for vector quantization (VQ) design and applied to image data coding. In the VQ coding procedure, it is often needs several epochs of clustering and always fails to obtain a better codebook; for instance, the well-known generalized Lloyd algorithm (GLA) easily traps into suboptimal codebook and does not have the ability to locate an optimal codebook during any clustering iteration with a random initial codebook. Hence, we propose a G2LA design to solve heavy times of clustering procedure and at least to gain the best suboptimal codebook. In order to avoid edge degradation, firstly, the new selection of initial codevectors is adopted as the fast grey vector quantization (FGVQ) procedure which chooses nonhomogeneous vectors from a large volume image data. Then extending the GLA to G2LA method by utilizing the measurement of grey relational analysis (GRA) which depends on the effect of relative objective and initial codevectors of FGVQ to obtain a better representative codebook. Experiment results show that at the same bit rate the G2LA has not only the quickly convergence time but also high quality reconstructed image than traditional GLA technique with Euclidean distance measure, especially in high dimension and a large volume data system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses the game of Matching Pennies (MP). It is a simple experiment to represent competitions between organisms with incentives to predict each other's behavior. The main objective of the study was to replicate systematic deviations in human beings when playing MP, and to establish whether a suboptimal performance can be better described by a modified linear learning model or by a sophisticated reinforcement-tracking model.

Combining a link between organizational strategy and human resources practices have a role as fuel for the organizations to reach and carry on their competitive advantages. In this study relationship between the strategy types developed by Miles and Snow, Porter, Burns and Stalker and human resources management systems and applications are discussed under fit analysis. A general look on Human Resources, its relation with strategy, fit context and the issue are also discussed with different point of views. Organizational strategy and human resources applications are set according to the strategy types. At the end of the study it is expressed that there are numerous different ways for different strategies. If we move on the context that every organization is unique, they will have human resources applications compatible with the strategy-organization approach chosen under their own conditions. Usually human resources approaches are changing according to changing competitive dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have compared the performances of exact algorithms (integer programming) and heuristic methods in the solution of conservation resource allocation problems, with the conclusion that exact methods are always preferable. Here, I summarize a potentially major deficiency in how the relationship between exact and heuristic methods has been presented: the above comparisons have all been done using relatively simple (linear) maximum coverage or minimum set models that are by definition solvable using integer programming. In contrast, heuristic or meta-heuristic algorithms can be applied to less simplified nonlinear and/or stochastic problems. The focus of this study is two kinds of suboptimality, first-stage suboptimality caused by model simplification and second-stage suboptimality caused by inexact solution. Evidence from comparisons between integer programming and heuristic solution methods suggests a suboptimality level of around 3%–10% for well-chosen heuristics, much depending on the problem and data. There is also largely anecdotal evidence from a few studies that have evaluated results from simplified conservation resource allocation problems using more complicated (nonlinear) models. These studies have found that dropping components such as habitat loss rates or connectivity effects from the model can lead to suboptimality from 5% to 50%. Consequently, I suggest that more attention should be given to two topics, first, how the performance of a conservation plan should be evaluated, and second, what are the consequences of simplifying the ideal conservation resource allocation model? Factors that may lead to relatively complicated problem formulations include connectivity and evaluation of long-term persistence, stochastic habitat loss and availability, species interactions, and distributions that shift due to climate change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the design of mechanical systems, structural problems result from uncertainties. Uncertainties exist in dimension, applied loads, boundary conditions, and material properties from manufacturing. Therefore, it is very important to qualify uncertainty and to define approximate deviations in manufacturing, which can be probabilistic or statistical. In this paper, a mixed integrated approach to mechanical systems with probabilistic structural characteristics is proposed. A deterministic optimization design that considers structural performance searches critical points and then a reliability-based design is performed in the interactive design steps. This interactive design can be applied to the optimization problem considering both linear and non-linear structural performances simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A new clustering method is presented which proposes a class of objective functions and an algorithm which sub-optimizes the objective functions over the whole space of partitions. The objective functions have a global nature, encompassing both the cluster contents and the cluster number. However, the accompanying suboptimization algorithm works according to a simple progressive merger scheme. The algorithmic scheme produces in a quite natural way an indexed hierarchy. The hierarchy index is not just tacked on to the method--see Diday and Moreau--on the contrary, the algorithm refers directly to its values which measure, depending upon the particular formulation, either the relative affinity or the relative difference of the two clusters merged at a given level of hierarchy. In this way, the scale of hierarchy and hierarchy-wise validity of clusters can easily be established, which is of great importance in analysing unstructured data sets whose generating process is unknown and can only be hypothesized after an initial structure had been established, e.g. owing to clustering, as is the case in pattern recognition--see Kaminuma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytic and institutional approaches to channel coordination have developed independent of each other. This paper attempts to integrate both approaches by using the Coase Theorem, which has had wide application in the economics of natural resources and the law. Suboptimization means that total channel profits are lower than maximum attainable channel profits. Applying the Coase Theorem suggests that total channel profits can be maximized if property rights in the channel are well defined. Channel coordination is viewed in terms of defining rights, and several hypotheses regarding channel behavior are developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]