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The displacement of the dock wall after excavation is inevitable in the construction of anchor plate pile dock wall structures on soft soil foundations. For composite dock wall structures that use flexible walls such as diaphragm walls and anchor structures, the stress system of the structure is relatively complex, and the working conditions change in each stage of construction, resulting in different displacement trends of the structure. To ensure the requirements for the net width of the dock, the displacement control measures for each stage of the structure were proposed through the analysis of the working conditions and numerical calculation of the displacement of the dock wall and the anchor structure behind the wall. At the same time, the displacement was reserved based on the numerical calculation conclusion. Based on the actual monitoring data of construction, the reliability of numerical calculation was verified synchronously, and then a displacement control technology for docks can be developed for promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequence of affirmative action for a "middle" ranked group on equity and the leader's overall performance or "efficiency." The literature on electoral quotas is invested in the equity question for disadvantaged groups, but is mostly silent on this issue. We use a randomized electoral quota for an intermediately ranked caste group (OBCs) in a large state in India to show that overall, such a quota does not affect delivery of public projects, or redistribute projects away from disadvantaged groups (SC/STs). Moreover, we show that when the group is large, the quota may in fact improve leader's performance. The improvement in overall performance does not come at a cost of lower allocation to the most disadvantaged group. We argue and provide suggestive evidence that when the group is large, such a quota for the group increases within-group electoral competition in villages. The result highlights that "efficiency" concerns regarding affirmative action may need reevaluation. It further justifies the targeting of electoral quota policy in India towards jurisdictions where the group is numerous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliability is one of the main characteristics of ecosystem, its ability to effectively maintain its structure and perform functions without fail when environmental conditions change due to natural or anthropogenic negative impacts. It is shown that in the assessment of ecosystems, the leading role belongs to environmental monitoring to determine the condition of ecosystem components and identify the possibility of ensuring reliability. Methodical approaches to environmental monitoring have been developed. Mechanisms of ensuring and principles of reliability assessment of different types of ecosystems are considered. The main attention is paid to the recovery, reservation and conditioning of ecosystems under the influence of negative factors. To quantify the ability of ecosystems to recover, it is proposed to use appropriate criteria, which are determined by certain calculation formulas. With insufficient reliability of ecosystem elements due to the actions of negative factors, its reliability is ensured by reservation at the expense of additional means and capabilities. In the case of agroecosystems, which are artificially created biotic groups of organisms that are supported by humans, it is an integrated approach using the theory of ecosystem reliability that expands the range of means to study their effective functioning. It is noted that the increase in the reliability of the agroecosystem is provided by the use of its reliable elements, as well as special systems for ensuring recovery and reservation. It is emphasized that the application of reliability theory in the study of agroecosystems contributes to the management of their functional efficiency for obtaining environmentally safe products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of Muslim nations, including Malaysia, ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with the exception of those provisions that conflict with Islamic teachings, particularly those that deal with Islamic family law. This article discusses conflicting issues that are related to the provisions of Article 16 (1) of CEDAW and Islamic family law in Malaysia such as gender equal rights to marriage, equal rights in divorce-related matters, and equal position between mother and father towards their children. The Islamic family law of Malaysia, the international treaty (CEDAW), and authoritative jurisprudence books as well as contemporary Islamic law texts were all examined as part of this study using a content analysis method. CEDAW’s blanket definition of the discrimination against women and make the same demands disregards of the local and social values of the Malaysian society is inappropriate. The CEDAW’s proposal for amending Islamic family law regarding marriage, divorce and parental rights in Malaysia should not be entertained because it is contradicting with the Islamic and local values uphold by the Malaysian society especially the Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can a mandate for inclusive school education translate into reality? What challenges can undermine it in the context of a stratified schooling system? We discuss this in the context of India's landmark Right to Education Act. A controversial clause of the Act mandates that private schools should reserve at least 25 percent of entry-level seats for disadvantaged sections of the society. This paper, drawing on a detailed survey of 1642 households, and interactions with parents over 2014–2019, unpacks the experiences of households who applied for admission in private schools through the mandate. Our results suggest that more resourceful households (in terms of ability to speak official language, wealth and education) are more likely to apply, and get admissions through the mandate. Acquiring eligibility documents (proofs for income and residence) is a major hurdle in completing the application process. Even after being allotted a seat, households continue to face several barriers that make it difficult for them to secure an admission and enrol or continue sending their child to the private school through the mandate. The results are sobering, and flag the possibility that transformative potential of the mandate may not be fully realised if the status quo prevails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate the impact of an affirmative action policy, which reserves quotas in public jobs for disadvantaged groups, on educational and labour market outcomes through 'incentive effects' in future employment prospects. Unlike the affirmative action policies based only on caste (in India) or race (in the United States), Nepal offers a novel context because its policy provides multiple channels of affirmation in public jobs to highly discriminated groups, depending on their caste/ethnicity, gender, geographic origin, and impairment status. Our difference-in-differences estimates using the Nepal Labour Force Survey III (2017/18) suggest that the policy significantly improved the educational and labour market outcomes of younger reservation eligible in the schoolaged cohort at the time of policy change. On average, the younger cohort improved their years of schooling by 1.53 years and monthly earnings by NPR 1,812 (approximately USD 17.76; about 11% of the national average). Our findings also indicate a higher policy impact on education for those who obtain treatment through multiple channels. However, the higher educational attainments of these multiple treatment groups are yet to transmit fully into their labour market outcomes. Our findings offer some important policy implications for not only Nepal but also societies fighting to reduce inequalities across caste, geographic, ethnic and racial groups [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth face stark inequities in opioid misuse, social support, and suicide attempt. This study examined trends in these behavioral measures among AI/AN students in New Mexico (NM).Methods: Using the NM oversampled Youth Resiliency and Risk Survey (NM-YRRS, 2009 - 2019: odd years), prevalence estimates of opioid misuse, social support (SS), and suicide attempt for AI/AN high school students were generated. Trends over time were assessed via linear regression of weighted proportions according to Peter Armitage. Stratified trends by demographics were also employed.Results: While the prevalence of suicide attempt did not change significantly over time, it was consistently higher among females (2011-2019), those who misused opioids, received low social support, had a mother with less than high school education, had a C, D, or F for academic performance, and non-straight students relative to their counterparts. In particular, the prevalence of suicide attempt among AI/AN students who reported opioid misuse in 2009 was significantly higher by 25.4% than their counterparts who did not report opioid misuse (35.8% vs. 10.4%.) A significant decreasing trend over time (2009-2017) was observed for opioid misuse (16.1%↓8.8%, p-value = 0.0033), including when stratifying by sex (males: 15.9%↓9%, p-value = 0.002; females: 16.2%↓8.6%, p-value = 0.012). Youth with high maternal education exhibited significant decline in opioid misuse (13.5%↓6.7%, p-value = 0.019; 2011-2017.) Opioid misuse increased significantly from 2017 to 2019 (8.8%↑12.9%, p-value < 0.0001.) For instance, in 2019 among AI/AN students who reported low social support, opioid misuse was roughly doubled (18.9% vs. 8.5%, p < 0.0001), and suicide attempt was tripled (21.3% vs. 7.0%, p < 0.0001) compared to students with high social support.Conclusion: No significant trend was observed for suicide attempt. We observed a significant decreasing trend in opioid misuse between 2009 through 2017 but a significant increase from 2017 to 2019. A higher level of maternal education (college or above), and an A or B school grade performance were protective against both opioid misuse and suicide attempt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autonomous vehicle technology is poised to revolutionize shared vehicle systems, offering the potential for increased efficiency and convenience. To better devise management strategies for shared autonomous vehicles, this paper addresses a real-time dispatch problem with hybrid requests, where on-demand (immediate) and pre-booked (reserved) trip requests coexist. The coexistence of these two types of request behaviors introduces considerable complexity to real-time dispatch due to the uncertainty in trip demand. We design an approximate dynamic programming (ADP) approach for making vehicle–trip assignments and vehicle relocation decisions. We first formulate the real-time vehicle dispatch problem as a dynamic program and decompose it into time-staged subproblems. To effectively handle the high-dimensional state space, we replace the value functions with tractable approximations and propose a piecewise-linear functional approximation method that captures the spatiotemporal value of vehicles. To calibrate the parameters in the approximations, we propose DualT and DualNext algorithms to provide precise dual information, thereby enhancing the accuracy of our approach. Furthermore, we propose a lookahead strategy that incorporates pre-booked request information into the ADP approach for improving real-time decision-making. We validate the effectiveness of the ADP approach through numerical experiments conducted using taxi data from Brooklyn, New York. The ADP approach outperforms benchmark policies in solution quality while maintaining computational efficiency, and the incorporation of the lookahead strategy significantly enhances the performance of the ADP approach, yielding substantial improvements. Numerical results demonstrate that integrating pre-booked requests into vehicle dispatch management can greatly enhance the system efficiency. • We address a real-time SAV dispatch problem with hybrid on-demand and pre-booked trip requests. • An ADP modeling and algorithmic approach is proposed. • A lookahead strategy is integrated to improve the performance of the ADP approach. • The results demonstrate the potential for pre-booking behaviors to enhance the system efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite noticeable improvements in electric vehicle (EV) technology, EV charging time remains high, and the lack of fast-charging infrastructure extends the travelling time for long-distance trips even further. Charging strategies to coordinate EVs' charging plans dynamically will help reduce station waiting times. This paper aims to quantify and compare the performances of two decentralised strategies using regular information-sharing between EVs and stations to estimate future waiting time in charging stations accurately. The communication strategy relies only on the communication of optimal charging plan computed by EVs to stations without any reservation. In contrast, the reservation strategy enables additionally the booking of optimal charging time slots. In a dedicated multi-agent simulation framework, we tested both strategies on different levels of infrastructure saturation. The communication strategy shows the best performance especially when combined with more frequent charging stops. • Two charging strategies are compared: one using communication, the other reservation. • Communication reduces by up to 12.8% the time spent in charging stations. • Multiplying stops and allowing charges above 80% of SoC improve both strategies. • Communication alone has better performance than the reservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct and study a mathematical model for the distribution of information transmission resource in a multiservice access node. The model considers an arbitrary number of multimedia traffic streams, which differ in the intensity of claims arrival, the amount of resource used to service one claim, and the resource occupation time. The time intervals between the arrival of claims have an exponential distribution with a parameter depending on the number of claims being serviced in the considered flow. We construct a recursive algorithm for evaluating the characteristics. Relations are established between the integral and flow characteristics of the quality of service for the claims. We construct an efficient algorithm for estimating the amount of resource required to service given traffic flows with required quality. The efficiency of the computational procedure is achieved as a result of organizing recursion over the volume of resource and the use of normalized values of state probabilities. We consider a solution to the problem of estimating the required amount of resource for a multiservice node model, which allows to use resource reservation and dynamic distribution mechanisms when servicing elastic traffic. We show numerical examples that illustrate the features of the implementation of the constructed computational procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period in which a roadside unit (RSU) of a vehicle remains in the coverage area is too short in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) in which the vehicles move at high speeds. In this short period, it is necessary for the vehicles to join the network and establish continuous communication with the RSU. To accomplish this, the RSU and vehicles need an efficient and robust media access control (MAC) protocol. In this study, a new reservation-based MAC (ReMAC) protocol in which multiple channels are used is suggested to ensure rapid connection to RSUs, smooth transition between RSUs, and efficient channel usage. The protocol uses the dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) standard's data/control channels by dividing them into multiple subchannels to support efficient channel usage, rapid service provision, and high vehicle density scenarios. The simulation of the protocol was conducted with OPNET Modeler and the performance comparisons were carried out with the metrics such as channel access delay, channel collision rate, success rate, and throughput. These are the metrics that are used in VeMAC, CFR-MAC, TMMAC, and VATMAC protocols that exist in this area. All the simulation results show in all scenarios that ReMAC significantly surpassed the current protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the downlink of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based cell that accommodates calls from different service-classes with different resource requirements. We assume that calls arrive in the cell according to a quasi-random process, i.e., calls are generated by a finite number of sources. To calculate the most important performance metrics in this OFDM-based cell, i.e., congestion probabilities and resource utilization, we model it as a multirate loss model, show that the steady-state probabilities have a product form solution (PFS) and propose recursive formulas which reduce the complexity of the calculations. In addition, we study the bandwidth reservation (BR) policy which can be used in order to reserve subcarriers in favor of calls with high subcarrier requirements. The existence of the BR policy destroys the PFS of the steady-state probabilities. However, it is shown that there are recursive formulas for the determination of the various performance measures. The accuracy of the proposed formulas is verified via simulation and found to be satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins used cattle as her catalyst to describe the depredations brought about by US cattle ranchers and corrupt reservation land agents as part of US expansion. A catalyst is an item or person that precipitates action, and cattle in the West during the second half of the nineteenth century did just that. Winnemucca, like other nineteenth-century authors, offered rhetorical practices to show that peoples regarded as subjected and assimilated were in truth employing existing discursive methods to further their own causes. Winnemucca describes her experience of US settlement of the West as an example of how one Indigenous community had to dramatically alter because of the encroachment of Americans and their cattle. These struggles permeate her most famous work, her memoir, Life among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). In addition, some of her most passionate rhetoric appears in her newspaper articles, published in Newspaper Warrior, as well as in her 1884 congressional testimony, in archives at the University of Nevada, Reno. Winnemucca would come to describe the settlers' actions against her people in terms of cattle in two key ways: cattle became competition for resources, and cattle became comparative figures, as the Paiutes themselves came to be treated as merely another form of stock. I argue that Winnemucca used cattle deliberately in her memoir, essays, and testimony to gain sympathy from white audiences and US government officials in order to help her people, the Paiutes, during the cattle boom of the 1880s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Conduct theoretical analysis of intersection capacity and vehicle delay under reservation-based control. • Propose a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model that can dynamically form batches with the optimal sizes and determine service sequence of vehicles under varying traffic condition. • Simulation results show that: ○ The proposed optimization-based control performs best compared with reservation-based control and vehicle-actuated control. ○ Reservation-based control outperforms actuated control under low demand or under-saturated demand. ○ FCFS-based control is incapable of handling high demand and multiple conflicting streams. Abstract Reservation-based methods with simple policies such as first-come-first-service (FCFS) have been proposed in the literature to manage connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) at isolated intersections. However, a comprehensive analysis of intersection capacity and vehicle delay under FCFS-based control is missing, especially under high traffic demand. To address this problem, this study adopts queueing theory and analytically shows that such method is incapable of handling high demand with multiple conflicting traffic streams. Furthermore, an optimization model is proposed to optimally serve CAVs arriving at an intersection for delay minimization. This study then compares the performance of the proposed optimization-based control with reservation-based control as well as conventional vehicle-actuated control at different demand levels. Simulation results show that the proposed optimization-based control performs best and it has noticeable advantages over the other two control methods. The advantages of reservation-based control are insignificant compared with vehicle-actuated control under high demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite having outlawed the caste system and the concept of untouchability in 1947, caste identity remains a cornerstone of social, political and economic life in India. Like other social institutions, educational institutions are the reflection of caste prejudices and discrimination. The recent inclusion of lower castes through the reservation system (affirmative action) has changed the nature of higher education. Based on an ethnographic account of a university campus and students’ perceptions about caste issues, the authors suggest that the structure of higher education in India is designed in a manner that exacerbates, instead of ameliorates, tensions of class and caste. Using Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital, the paper defines the existing campus culture as a ‘caste culture’. The text concludes that elite institutions do not yet guarantee the capability to overcome existing caste prejudices and stereotypes, regardless of structural attempts at reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: American Indian adolescents who reside on or near reservations report higher levels of substance use than adolescents in other racial/ethnic groups. Little research has addressed patterns of use, which have important implications for prevention and treatment planning. The objective of our study was to describe substance use among a large, population-based sample of American Indian and white students who lived on or near reservations. Methods: We obtained data from 4964 students in grades 7-12 attending 46 schools on or near reservations throughout the United States during 4 academic years (2009-2013). Measures assessed current substance use for alcohol, heavy drinking, marijuana, cigarettes, inhalants, and other drugs. We used latent class analysis to identify patterns of substance use by grade group (grades 7-8 and grades 9-12) and race (American Indian or white). Results: For American Indians in both grade groups, we found 4 classes of substance use (in order of size): (1) nonusers; (2) marijuana and cigarette users; (3) alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette users; and (4) polysubstance users. For white students, we found 2 classes (nonusers and polysubstance users) among younger students and 4 classes (nonusers; alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette users; alcohol and cigarette users; and polysubstance users) among older students. Conclusion: We found significant differences in substance use patterns, especially at younger ages, between reservation American Indian students and white students attending the same schools. Combinations of substances used by American Indian adolescents were most likely to include marijuana, as compared with alcohol for white adolescents. Identifying subpopulations of users allows the design of interventions that will more efficiently and effectively address prevention and treatment needs of groups of individuals than would a one-size-fits-all approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Geographically distributed data centers are interconnected through provisioned dedicated WAN links, realized by circuit/wavelength–switching that support large‐scale data transfer between data centers. These dedicated WAN links are typically shared by multiple services through on‐demand and in‐advance resource reservations, resulting in varying bandwidth availability in future time periods. Such an inter‐data center network provides a dynamic and virtualized environment when augmented with cloud infrastructure supporting end‐host migration. In such an environment, dynamically provisioned network resources are recognized as extremely useful capabilities for many types of network services. However, the existing approaches to in‐advance reservation services provide limited reservation capabilities, eg, limited connections over links returned by the traceroute over traditional IP‐based networks. Moreover, most existing approaches do not address fault tolerance in the event of node or link failures and do not handle end‐host migrations; thus, they do not provide a reliability guarantee for in‐advance reservation frameworks. In this paper, we propose using multiple paths to increase bandwidth usage in the WAN links between data centers when a single path does not provide the requested bandwidth. Emulation‐based evaluations of the proposed path computation show a higher reservation acceptance rate compared to state‐of‐art reservation frameworks, and such computed paths can be configured with a limited number of static forwarding rules on switches. Our prototype provides the RESTful Web service interface for link‐fail and end‐host migration event management and reroutes paths for all the affected reservations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women constitute an entire half of the population and to move forward by leaving behind an entire half of the population can't be accepted as a plausible, just and sustainable model of nation-building by our policy makers. Women are one of the major stakeholders in every dimension of the society and, hence, it is imperative that they be empowered, educated and uplifted from their present state of affairs to an elevated one. It can be safely stated that political empowerment, through deliberate attempts of reservation in politics and affirmative action by the State, will not only lead to an increase in status and self-esteem of the long subjugated womenfolk, but will also lead to adopting of courses of actions favouring women's needs and issues which, otherwise, in male-dominated decision making bodies are ignored, overlooked, underestimated or met with acrimony. Much talk is being heard about delivery of good governance to the public; and good governance requires gender balance in decision making. It is, now, only a matter of time and effort on part of the State and the civil society to proffer impetus to the subtle revolution of women's empowerment that is slowly running through the social fabric of the nation by compensating the womenfolk for their undue subjugation and giving them their rightful place as equal partners to men in the decision making process, and harnessing the energies of half of the entire population to achieve a world of liberty, equality and fraternity, not only on paper but also in reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mouse roared on September 20, 1974, when the sixty-seven-member Kootenai Nation of northern Idaho declared war on the United States. As the war developed, the familiar tools of traditional Native American / US negotiations unfolded. A jaundiced state governor, an aggressive leader of local law enforcement, an excessive show of police force, the involvement of "friends of the Indian," and passionate media all concluded with government- to- government negotiations. At the end of the negotiations, the Kootenai Nation had secured a reservation and funding to save the nation from extinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extent to which CEDAW has been implemented in Muslim countries particularly in Malaysia. Applying a qualitative approach comprising of content and comparative analyses, the paper seeks to understand the reservations Muslim countries have concerning the compatibility of CEDAW's understanding of gender equality with the SharÊÑah's perspective on gender and gender relations. It does this by examining Malaysia's implementation of CEDAW in three areas: constitution, legal and policy based on the SharÊÑah, and CEDAW's articles. By doing so, the paper clarifies misconceptions regarding the SharÊÑah's treatment of gender related issues. This paper will also explore the different roles given to each gender and how they are positioned in the overall worldview of Islam. The paper concludes that both the SharÊÑah and CEDAW share the same positive advocacy of gender equality albeit with different approaches. The differences in approach should be respected as they underscore deep and complex creedal and social commitments that define the different countries with their unique cultural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A family caregiver provides unpaid assistance to a family member/friend with a chronic disease, illness or disability. The caregiving process can affect a caregiver's quality of life by reducing time for themselves, for other family members and for work. The 2000 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey estimates that 16 % of adult American Indians (AIs) are caregivers. A 2012 survey collected knowledge and personal experience data from a random sample of Hopi men and women (248 men and 252 women). Self-identified caregivers answered questions on time spent caregiving, caregiver difficulties and services requested. Approximately 20 % of the 500 Hopi participants self-identified as caregivers (N = 98), with 56 % female. Caregivers in contrast to non-caregivers had a lower percentage of ever having a mammogram (86, 89 %), a higher percentage of ever having had a Pap smear test (89.1, 85.6 %), a prostate specific antigen test (35, 30.6 %) and ever having had a colonoscopy (51.2, 44 %). Almost 21 % of caregivers reported difficulty with stress and 49 % reported it as their greatest caregiver difficulty. More males (28.6 %) identified financial burden as the greatest difficulty than females ( p = 0.01). Training on patient care was the service that caregivers would like to receive most (18.2 %). The percentage of Hopi's providing caregiving was similar to national averages, although among men, was somewhat higher than national data (44 vs. 34 %). Stress was identified as a difficulty, similar to national studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concurrent execution of GPU tasks is available in modern GPU device. However, limited device memory is an obvious bottleneck in executing many GPU tasks. And the task priority and system performance are often ignored. To address these, a real-time GPU scheduling scheme is proposed in this paper. A reservation algorithm based on device memory(RBDM) is adopted to provide more opportunity for the High-priority task in the scheme. high priority first wake (HPFW) and small memory HPFW (SM-HPFW) are employed in the scheduling of waiting tasks to improve the priority response time and system performance. A CPU-based monitor is developed to check the GPU task execution. Experiments show the RBDM can work effectively. Compared with FIFO, HPFW can decrease overall priority response time significantly. Overall task completion time can be reduced by 20 % using the SM-HPFW while the distribution of device memory requirement of GPU tasks is even. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we model a queueing-inventory system that has applications in railway and airline reservation systems. Maximum items in the inventory is $$S$$ which have a random common life time; this includes those that are sold in particular cycle. A customer, on arrival to an idle server with at least one item in inventory, is immediately taken for service; or else he joins the buffer of maximum size $$S$$ depending on number of items in the inventory (the buffer capacity varies and is, at any time, equal to the number of items in the inventory). The arrival of customers constitutes a Poisson process, demanding exactly one item each from the inventory. If there is no item in the inventory, the arriving customer first queue up in a finite waiting space of capacity $$K$$ . When it overflows an arrival goes to an orbit of infinite capacity with probability $$p$$ or is lost forever with probability $$1-p$$ . From the orbit he retries for service according to an exponentially distributed inter-occurrence time. The service time follows an exponential distribution. Cancellation of sold items before its expiry is permitted. Inventory gets added through cancellation of purchased items, until the expiry time. Cancellation time is assumed to be negligible. We analyze this system. Several performance characteristics are computed; expected sojourn time of the system in a cycle with 'no inventory' and also 'maximum inventory' are computed. Some illustrative numerical examples are presented. An optimization problem is numerically analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to unravel the institutional context of the educational experience of scheduled caste engineering students in Kerala, a federal state in India. Though much has been debated about equity of access in the domain of reservation policies in higher education while studying the caste question and educational equity, process and outcome dimensions continue to be understudied. By presenting ethnographic accounts of the educational experience of fourteen scheduled caste engineering students, we explain how different institutional cultures result in different experiences for students of similar educational and familial backgrounds. Our analysis suggests that the notion of institutional habitus better captures the impact of institutions on marginalised students. The paper concludes with a call for further research to explore the institutional habitus of different higher education institutions. The authors hope that such research would help in formulation of new policies and practices to facilitate institutional transformation and contribute to improved quality and equity of higher education in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving reservation system for electric vehicles (EV) charging stations. Due to the short driving range ofEV, frequent charging is necessary.Amechanism for charging station reservation for EV owners is desirable. Our proposed system allows the vehicle owner to reserve a number of charging stations along the intended route at different time-slots. Yet it is secure against misuse such that a user can only hold a limited number of reservations simultaneously. More importantly, our system can provide privacy for users. The charging station does not know the identity of the user who has reserved it. Thus location privacy can be protected.We demonstrate the practicality of our system with a prototype implementation on a smart phone. Finally, we also provide a security proof to show that our system is secure under well-known computational assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the political technologies of a caste certificate regularly employed by a Denotified Tribe, the Kunchikorves, in the Mumbai slum of Dharavi. The author demonstrates how the Kunchikorves mobilise kin and affine relations and engage with different organs of the state in an effort to authenticate their caste status. These ‘caste certificates’ are needed to make use of reservations policies to get government jobs and higher education. Municipal jobs and promotions are desirable as the basis for secure employment and upward mobility. Describing the circuitous methods by which the Kunchikorves obtain such authenticating documents, this paper notes that caste identity, while not hinging on notions of purity or pollution, is still an important vehicle for collective identification in contemporary India. The post-colonial state can be said to have extended and elaborated the colonial state's enumerating and objectifying imperatives when it comes to group identity. Groups such as the Kunchikorves are complicit in these objectifying measures, and actively seek out authenticating proofs of an identity that was originally pejorative, arbitrary and imposed. This paper argues that the Kunchikorves’ manufacturing of caste certificates secures them a job,while at the same time bequeathing them a caste categorisation necessarily mediated by processes of bureaucratic authentication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the growth of users' traffic demands, the need for a network to flexibly assign the existing resources to the demands becomes an important challenging issue. Therefore, a specific generation of optical networks called elastic optical network (EON) has been introduced recently. EON can assign the available resources proportional to the requested amount of arriving demands. However, one of the important issues in EON which has not been addressed is the provision of quality of service (QoS) for data traffic. Blocking probability (BP), loss rate, delay and jitter are known to be well-known QoS parameters. Based on QoS-aware classification, the data traffic is divided into high-quality (HQ) and low-quality (LQ) traffic. Accordingly, the QoS for the HQ traffic is preferred to be guaranteed. Among mentioned QoS parameters, BP is the most critical metric which has to be carefully taken into consideration. In this paper, we propose two novel algorithms in order to provide QoS for data traffic and alleviate the BP for HQ traffic as QoS provision based on squeezing (QPS) and QoS provision based on fragmentation (QPF). The proposed algorithms, respectively, use reservation and preemption mechanisms to provide better QoS. The numerical results confirm that the QPF and QPS algorithms are capable of alleviating the blocking probability of HQ traffic at the expense of slight increase in blocking probability for LQ traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent and integrity of wetland ecosystems in New Zealand has declined. Only an estimated 10% of the historic (pre-European) extent of inland palustrine wetlands now remains. A key mechanism for conservation of wetlands is inclusion within the protected area network, including both public and private protected areas. Review of progress in wetland reservation enables evaluation of the success of land purchase, land tenure review and other initiatives to address gaps in the national reserve system. I present the first national assessment of changes in wetland reservation between 1990 and 2013. Potential biases in wetland protection were identified by comparing differences in reservation across wetland type, wetland size, biogeographical region, and altitudinal range. At the national scale 63% of palustrine wetlands are now within protected areas, but this represents only 6% of the historical extent. Between 1990 and 2013 the extent of current wetlands protected in conservation land administered by the Department of Conservation increased from 48% to 60%, a net gain of 29 000 ha. Much of the increase in wetland reservation has occurred in the South Island, partly due to tenure review of high country land (>500 m a.s.l.). There are inconsistencies in reservation between wetland types, with lower coverage of protected areas for swamps, fens and marshes. There are also inadequacies in the completeness of wetland reserves, with a number of wetlands only partially contained within reserve boundaries. I propose a number of options for improving the reservation status of wetlands in New Zealand that will contribute to a more comprehensive, adequate and representative network of freshwater protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American Indian women have lower cancer survival rates compared to non-Hispanic White women. Increased cancer screening fostered by culturally sensitive education and community programs may help decrease this disparity. This study assesses the effectiveness of Hopi Cancer Support Services (HCSS) in maintaining high rates of breast and cervical cancer screening among Hopi women and evaluates the impact of participation in HCSS programs on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. A population-based survey was conducted on the Hopi reservation in 2012 (n = 252 women). Frequency of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screenings, participation in HCSS programs and barriers to screening were evaluated. Unconditional multiple logistic regression estimated the independent effect of the HCSS program on CRC screening. Approximately 88 % of Hopi women 40+ reported ever having had a mammogram; 71 % did so within the past 2 years. Approximately 66 % of women 50+ were ever screened for colorectal cancer (FOBT and/or colonoscopy). Women who had their last mammogram through HCSS were 2.81 (95 % CI 1.12, 7.07) times more likely to have been screened for CRC. Breast and cervical cancer screening continues at a high rate among Hopi women and is substantially greater than that reported prior to the inception of HCSS. Furthermore, participation in programs offered by HCSS is strongly associated with increased colorectal cancer screening. This tribal health program (HCSS) has strongly influenced cancer screening among Hopi women and is a model of a tribally run cancer prevention program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usual and effective way to increase on-board electronics reliability and general radiation hardness is the usage of “sleeping” (shutdown) mode and “passive” reserve of vulnerable blocks and elements. This work presents the comparative radiation test results of hybrid and integrated DC–DC converter's TID's sensitivity in active, sleeping and passive modes. The obtained experimental data demonstrates that TID hardness of bipolar, BiCMOS and hybrid DC–DCs in the unbiased condition is at least not higher than their normally biased mode. Moreover some of bipolar integrated DC–DCs have relatively higher radiation-induced degradation while unbiased, so their “passive” (so-called “cold”) reserve mode may be the worst case mode for TID's hardness level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his capacity as poet, writer of novels and short stories and filmmaker, Sherman Alexie (b. 1966) has successfully bridged the cultural and social gap separating Native Americans from mainstream American society. With a combination of humor, wit, deep sensitivity, social satire and historical awareness, Alexie has effectively portrayed the contemporary plight of Native Americans isolated on reservations where many are doomed to live desperate lives on the distant periphery of American culture. The present study is an attempt to enhance appreciation of Alexie's novel Reservation Blues (1996) by examining a network of historical allusions appearing in the novel that lay bare the military, economic and social forces that undermined Native American culture, especially that of the Plateau Indians in the American Northwest, including that of Alexie's own tribe, the Spokanes. The study draws upon ideas from recent historical studies such as Heather Cox Richardson's Wounded Knee (2010) and Elliot West's The Last Indian War (2009) as well as sources used by Alexie himself in the writing of the novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer recovery support (PRS) offers significant benefits for individuals in recovery from substance abuse disorders. This research describes the experiences of the first 12 months of a tribally led, American Indian community-based PRS project in two American Indian communities. An intrinsic qualitative case-study design was used to answer the research question, “What are some considerations for implementing PRS services in an American Indian reservation community?” Results showed PRS services fill a much-needed gap in American Indian communities where recovery support resources are limited and substance abuse is pervasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present community outcomes in our unique pre-engineering program, along with lessons learned when a tribal college and community partners collaborate with two mainstream universities in experiential learning on a Native American reservation in the United States. We share our expertise so that others may apply elsewhere what we have learned. We provide guidance through sharing our successes, best practices, challenges, case studies, and hopes for the future. We recognize that every reservation is unique, and what works for one may not work for others. Community outcomes include significant capacity building where partners assemble evidence-based research that strengthens the tribal college and tribal government, allowing them to better manage resources. The OSSPEEC program includes undergraduate, graduate and faculty researchers in water resources, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), geology, surveying, structures, and cross-disciplinary endeavors. Community partners include tribal governmental agencies, reservation-based interest groups, and non-profit organizations. The program is sustainable because the tribal college builds a variety of lasting partnerships offering mutual benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between August 2013 and February 2014, the author lived in Wolf Point, Montana, working on the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Reservation in northeastern Montana, administering and supervising twelve tribal members (Assiniboine, Sioux, and Blackfeet) and monitoring nonnative contract archaeologists on two large archaeological inventories in advance of 3-D seismic surveys on the reservation's east end. During the seismic surveys, tribal monitors accompanied the vibroseis trucks to help the drivers avoid previously recorded prehistoric sites. The employment, training, and education the monitors received over six months gave them marketable archaeological skills that may be useful for future tribal archaeological contracting opportunities. Tribal "contract archaeology" creates jobs and opportunities for tribal members while preserving their lands, resources, and traditional way of life. This is especially true for reservations rich in energy resources, such as Fort Peck. Federal undertakings on and off the reservation, and development of the Bakken oil field, should become sources of funding and employment for a thriving Fort Peck Reservation-based historic-preservation contracting office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, an inventory model for deteriorating items with price-dependent demand is developed. The cycle is divided into two periods, where an advance sales period is followed by a spot sales period. In practice, customers with reservations may cancel their orders before receiving them. During the advance sales period, the rate of reservations which will not be cancelled is dependent on the length of the waiting time for the receiving order. During the spot sales period, all customers receive their orders at the time of the purchase. We prove the existence of the realistic relationship that the advance sales price is smaller than the spot sales price. We also develop some useful properties and provide an iterative procedure for solving the maximization problem. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and we conclude the paper with suggestions for possible future research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system consists of a reader and many tags. In the mobile RFID environment, consumers can obtain product-related information of tags by using readers which are installed in mobile phones. However, the tag collision problem is serious in this environment. This paper proposes a multiple-bits-slot reservation aloha protocol for handling this problem. In the protocol, the reader assigns reservation slots before allocating frame slots, and each tag generates a random sequence in its own reservation slot randomly selected by this tag to reserve a frame slot, then the reader efficiently captures the reservation collisions in reservation slots by Manchester coding. Accordingly, the protocol significantly reduces collision frame slots, and eliminates empty frame slots. Our performance evaluation shows that the proposed protocol outperforms other aloha-based protocols 1. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SUMMARY Carrier sense multiple access and its variants have been widely used in mobile ad hoc networks. However, most existing access mechanisms cannot guarantee quality of service for real-time traffic. In this paper, we present a novel approach to guarantee the performance of real-time applications such as voice and video that require periodic access to the wireless local area network (WLAN) channel. Our approach can work either with distributed coordination function or enhanced distributed coordination function, and includes distributed reservations of time slots between the stations sharing the WLAN without the need to send any signaling or control messages. Stations can access the wireless medium only if they are able to complete the frame transmission without interruption to the reserved slots of existing real-time sessions. Simulation results indicate that the proposed mechanism provides high channel utilization, and bounded delays and jitter for real-time traffic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Maintenance of old growth forest has been argued to be important for the future of many bryophyte species, but there has been no empirical test of this proposition. Bryophytes constitute much of the plant biodiversity in Tasmanian tall open-forests dominated by Eucalyptus regnans and Eucalyptus obliqua. These forests have a low level of protection in their old growth stage. We ask whether if there is a concentration of bryophyte species in particular forest age classes and assess its significance for biological conservation. The bryophyte species at 99 forest sites were recorded and related to young, mature and old growth age classes using ANOVA. Only two bryophyte taxa were confined, with statistical confidence, to one of these classes. Succession in bryophyte assemblages takes the relay floristics form, with a few highly frequent species in the young forest, most of which do not persist in later stages, a large number of species establishing in middle-aged forests, some dying out with their short-lived hosts by the time of the old growth forest stage, and liverworts becoming more prominent with age. Species concentrated in the old growth phase of these eucalypt forests have all been recorded from secure reserves in this and other vegetation types. If present patterns of land use continue, and no extensive wild fires occur in the reserved old growth forest, almost all bryophyte species of E. regnans and E. obliqua mixed forest are likely to survive. This may not be the case in other regions of the world, where reservation may be poorer than in Tasmania. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

WiMedia systems are developed for indoor high-data-rate wireless systems. The H.264/AVC, a high-efficiency video coding technique, is considered for high definition (HD) video application. Considering the transmission of H.264/AVC based HD video over WiMedia, in this paper, we will propose a cross-layer architecture and an analytical model to calculate the optimal payload length with the constraints in error criteria, retransmission mechanism, and the delay budget. Besides, the required minimum reservation slots in WiMedia are also investigated to optimize the transmission performance of HD video. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are among the most prestigious technical institutes in India (and perhaps in the world) for undergraduate engineering education. Admission to an IIT is viewed by many Indians as a passport to success, prosperity, prestige, and possibly moving to Western countries for higher studies and/or jobs. This paper examines whether (i) access to the IITs is open to students irrespective of their socioeconomic status; (ii) students’ satisfaction, once they enter an IIT, is conditioned by their socioeconomic status; and (iii) students’ attitudes towards their future plans are influenced by their socioeconomic status. The paper is based on a survey conducted with nearly 260 students at two out of five original IITs in 2007–2008. Findings reveal that access to the IITs, satisfaction at the IITs, and future plans after the IITs are strongly correlated to students’ socioeconomic status. Even though admission to the IITs is based on an entrance examination, most of its students are from the socially and economically well-off families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the need of controling the access of terminals with guaranteed ressources on the high dynamic systems offered by LEO satellite constellations. A call-access-control scheme that guarantees the reservation of permanent resources of satellite constellations in $$O(\sqrt(n)\hbox{log}(n))$$ time, where n is the number of user present in the system, is described. A tradeoff between computational time of call-access-control and optimization of the use of the spectrum is identified. Some experimental results are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their recent article, N. Spillane and G. Smith (2007) suggested that reservation-dwelling American Indians have higher rates of problem drinking than do either non-American Indians or those American Indians living in nonreservation settings. These authors further argued that problematic alcohol use patterns in reservation communities are due to the lack of contingencies between drinking and "standard life reinforcers" (SLRs), such as employment, housing, education, and health care. This comment presents evidence that these arguments were based on a partial review of the literature. Weaknesses in the application of SLR constructs to American Indian reservation communities are identified as is the need for culturally contextualized empirical evidence supporting this theory and its application. Cautionary notes are offered about the development of literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and policy recommendations for American Indian communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Density functional theory calculations were used to explore the reservation and catalytic properties of the exceptionally active triplet oxygen species in microporous ZSM-5 zeolite. It was found that the triplet oxygen species in H-form ZSM-5 zeolite can be reserved in the form of the more stable singlet oxygen species commonly found in solid-state materials, and moreover the single oxygen species is facile to be photolyzed into the triplet oxygen species without destructions to zeolite frameworks. It thus provides a route to store the triplet oxygen species ready for catalytic uses. On the contrary, the metal-exchanged ZSM-5 zeolites are proven to be unsuitable reservoirs to the triplet oxygen species due to the comparable instability of the singlet species. The activation barrier of methane hydroxylation catalyzed by the triplet oxygen species in H-form ZSM-5 zeolite was calculated to be 7.12kcalmol−1, which is much lower than that in Fe-exchanged ZSM-5 zeolite and will proceed at room temperature. Combined with the previous results, it was shown that the triplet oxygen species anchored by the isolated Brönsted acidic sites in H-form ZSM-5 zeolite are potentially excellent oxidants for varieties of important processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Reservations give precise information that could be used to better manage supply. • Transient analysis of stochasticity in ridesourcing dynamics and the impact of reservations. • Analysis of an admission control policy for maintaining reach-time service levels. • Min cost flow reactive driver dispatching and rebalancing. • For a given quality of service, the number of idle drivers decreases with increasing reservations. Ridesourcing platforms recently introduced the "schedule a ride" service where passengers may reserve (book-ahead) a ride in advance of their trip. Reservations give platforms precise information that describes the start time and location of anticipated future trips; in turn, platforms can use this information to adjust the availability and spatial distribution of the driver supply. In this article, we propose a framework for modeling/analyzing reservations in time-varying stochastic ridesourcing systems. We consider that the driver supply is distributed over a network of geographic regions and that book-ahead rides have reach time priority over non-reserved rides. First, we propose a state-dependent admission control policy that assigns drivers to passengers; this policy ensures that the reach time service requirement would be attained for book-ahead rides. Second, given the admission control policy and reservations information in each region, we predict the "target" number of drivers that is required (in the future) to probabilistically guarantee the reach time service requirement for stochastic non-reserved rides. Third, we propose a reactive dispatching/rebalancing mechanism that determines the adjustments to the driver supply that are needed to maintain the targets across regions. For a specific reach time quality of service, simulation results using data from Lyft rides in Manhattan exhibit how the number of idle drivers decreases with the fraction of book-ahead rides. We also observe that the non-stationary demand (ride request) rate varies significantly across time; this rapid variation further illustrates that time-dependent models are needed for operational analysis of ridesourcing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) star networks, the construction of the transmission schedule is a key issue, which essentially affects the network performance. Up to now, classic scheduling techniques consider the nodes' requests in a sequential service order. However, these approaches are static and do not take into account the individual traffic pattern of each node. Owing to this major drawback, they suffer from low performance, especially when operating under asymmetric traffic. In this paper, a new class of scheduling algorithms for WDM star networks, which is based on the use of clustering techniques, is introduced. According to the proposed Clustering-Based Scheduling Algorithm (CBSA), the network's nodes are organized into clusters, based on the number of their requests per channel. Then, their transmission priority is defined beginning from the nodes belonging to clusters with higher demands and ending to the nodes of clusters with fewer requests. The main objective of the proposed scheme is to minimize the length of the schedule by rearranging the nodes' service order. Furthermore, the proposed CBSA scheme adopts a prediction mechanism to minimize the computational complexity of the scheduling algorithm. Extensive simulation results are presented, which clearly indicate that the proposed approach leads to a significantly higher throughput-delay performance when compared with conventional scheduling algorithms. We believe that the proposed clustering-based approach can be the base of a new generation of high-performance scheduling algorithms for WDM star networks. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Great achievements have been gained in assuring the safety of the lower Yellow River through arduous work in the past fifty years. But the disadvantages of boundary for river-flow are obvious, such as topography, tectonic movement and crustal stability. The main conflicts of less water and more sand, and the speeding up of sedimentation still exist, causing continuous river shrinkage. However, all the existing methods cannot completely avoid flood catastrophe, so a new control method needs to be explored. The method of changing-route based on geographical theory has always been a focus of debate over whether there are other feasible routes for the current Yellow River. From geoscientific point of view, this paper investigates whether there is a best feasible reservation route in Huang-Huai-Hai plain. Under the actual condition that the conflict between water and sand cannot be eradicated, the selection of the best reservation route should be the overlaying area of the optimum boundary conditions and the less social and economic loss. By detailed analysis of topography, tectonic movement, crustal stability and social-economic progress in the region of the lower Yellow River, the best reservation route is obtained by using the distance weighted function and the minimum cost function. The analysis result indicates that the reservation route can get rid of the influence of the elevation in central western Shandong Province, and the whole route flows through the Hal-Huang rift valley, which is good for channel stability. As to the basic parameters of water and sand movements, the gradient increases 36.2%, the length shortens 15.4% and the curvature reduces 12.2%. Using the reservation route can comparatively reduce the flood risk of the Yellow River, except that it will induce such problems as resettlement and relocation of towns, infrastructure reconstruction, water shortage in the abandoned area of the present route, as well as the resultant ecological and environmental degradation. But in contrast to the huge accumulative input to the harnessing of the Yellow River by the state, the absolute input of dealing with the above-mentioned problems is still acceptable. In the construction of corresponding infrastructures, using the reservation route will promote the region's socio-economic development and offer a rare chance of burgeoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reserved territories seem to be best reference sites of wildnature, where the long-term observations are carried out. Simulation model of spatially distributed processes of contamination of the state reservation is developed, and the dynamics of some pollutants is studied. An issue of the generalized evaluation of an ecological system status is discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To integrate conceptually the relationship between caste and politics, one must appreciate that the pure ritual hierarchy operates only when backed by wealth and power. In fact, there are multiple hierarchies in the caste order because each caste overvalues itself in relation to others. This can be gauged from their origin tales, which, without exception, claim an exalted past regardless of the actual status a caste occupies on the ground. With the breakdown of the closed village economy and the rise of democratic politics, the competitive element embedded in caste has come to the fore. This has resulted in the collapse of the caste system but also in the rise of caste identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonparametric estimators of the minimal number of reserved units from non renewable reliability data are given. Cases of stationary and non stationary renewal processes are considered. Numerical methods of estimator computing are proposed. Asymptotic confidence intervals are given. Real tire failure time data are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the socio-spatial ordering of the Chita reservation in the second half of the 18th century. The reservation is pointed out as the institution which modeled both space and population during the colonial period. A historical retrospection is done to comprehend the changing phenomenon of the different ways of settlement and transformation of space brought about by demographic changes, pressure on the reservation due to neighboring settlements' need for land and as a result of racial crossbreeding. Simultaneously, cooperative socioracial relations between the two groups were established which revolved around the occurrence of natural disasters, relocation of settlements, religious feasts, and labor questions, which led to the creation of an intermediate socio-spatial formation known as the parroquita or "little parish". It arose as the expression of the synthesis of the "republic of indians" and the "republic of whites", thus bringing an end to the twofold ordering of colonial society and giving rise to a local elite which than sought to control both the physical and the social spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]