The 25/25 rule: achieving more by doing less

Many organisations suffer from a self-inflicted wound – they attempt to do too much! As a result, nothing is done well and profits suffer. Our article addresses this problem by suggesting that managers should focus on a subset of their current initiatives – a subset selected to maximise returns without overstraining resources. We address the following issues: What are the symptoms of work overload? How does an excessive workload adversely impact the bottom line? How can managers determine the throughput capacity of their organisation? What can be done to address the problem of excessive workload? Many, if not most, organisations attempt to operate beyond their capacity, with the result that inefficiencies abound, deadlines are missed and profitability drops. Based on research and consulting experience in many companies, our paper explains the basic concepts of ‘the 25/25’ approach to project portfolio management – an approach designed to increase profitability by concentrating only on the work that is essential to the survival and profitability of the organisation. The approach has been successfully applied to dozens of public and private sector organisations companies.     

Hot Glue Gun Releasing Biocompatible Tissue Adhesive

Tissue bioadhesives are widely used in dermatology, surgery rooms, and in the field. Despite their advantages over sutures and staples, currently available tissue glues are limited by their mechanical properties and toxicity. Here, a new approach is described for wound closure that is based on a biocompatible, low melting point four‐armed N‐hydroxy succinimide‐modified polycaprolactone (star‐PCL‐NHS). Star‐PCL‐NHS is inserted into a hot melt glue gun, melts upon minimal pressure, and is extruded directly onto the wound, where it solidifies, bonding strongly with both edges of the wound. Changes in molecular weight allow control of adhesive strength, melting point, and elasticity properties. In vitro and in vivo evaluations confirm the biocompatibility of this system. The straightforward synthetic scheme and the simple delivery method, combined with the desirable mechanical properties, tunability, and tissue compatibility, are desirable traits in wound management.     

On the complexity of distributed stable matching with small messages

We consider the distributed complexity of the stable matching problem (a.k.a. “stable marriage”). In this problem, the communication graph is undirected and bipartite, and each node ranks its neighbors. Given a matching of the nodes, a pair of unmatched nodes is called blocking if they prefer each other to their assigned match. A matching is called stable if it does not induce any blocking pair. In the distributed model, nodes exchange messages in each round over the communication links, until they find a stable matching. We show that if messages may contain at most B bits each, then any distributed algorithm that solves the stable matching problem requires ${\Omega(\sqrt{n/B\log n})}We consider the distributed complexity of the stable matching problem (a.k.a. “stable marriage”). In this problem, the communication graph is undirected and bipartite, and each node ranks its neighbors. Given a matching of the nodes, a pair of unmatched nodes is called blocking if they prefer each other to their assigned match. A matching is called stable if it does not induce any blocking pair. In the distributed model, nodes exchange messages in each round over the communication links, until they find a stable matching. We show that if messages may contain at most B bits each, then any distributed algorithm that solves the stable matching problem requires W(?{n/Blogn}){\Omega(\sqrt{n/B\log n})} communication rounds in the worst case, even for graphs of diameter O(log n), where n is the number of nodes in the graph. Furthermore, the lower bound holds even if we allow the output to contain O(?n){O(\sqrt n)} blocking pairs, and if a pair is considered blocking only if they like each other much more then their assigned match.     

Distributed MST for constant diameter graphs

This paper considers the problem of distributively constructing a minimum-weight spanning tree (MST) for graphs of constant diameter in the bounded-messages model, where each message can contain at most B bits for some parameter B. It is shown that the number of communication rounds necessary to compute an MST for graphs of diameter 4 or 3 can be as high as and , respectively. The asymptotic lower bounds hold for randomized algorithms as well. On the other hand, we observe that O(log n) communication rounds always suffice to compute an MST deterministically for graphs with diameter 2, when B = O(log n). These results complement a previously known lower bound of for graphs of diameter Ω(log n). An extended abstract of this work appears in Proceedings of 20th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, August 2001.     

Arrest trajectories of adult offenders with a serious mental illness.

We examined patterns and correlates of arrest/re-arrests among offenders with a serious mental illness over a 4-year period. County criminal justice records and health and social service datasets were used to identify and describe inmates jailed in Pinellas County, Florida, between 7/03 and 6/04. A total of 3,769 participants (10.1% of arrestees) had a serious mental illness. Participants averaged 4.6 arrests (SD = 3.9, median = 4) and 150.6 days in jail (SD = 175.0, median = 90).Working from the trajectories of offending theory and literature we used latent class growth analysis to identify three classes of offenders with consistent numbers of arrests over a 4-year period and nearly parallel arrest trajectories; a sporadic arrest class (n = 469) with minimal arrests, a low arrest chronic class (n = 3,090, about one arrest/year); and a high arrest chronic class (n = 210, about four arrests/year). Analysis of arrests by age group within each of the classes suggested that for the low and high arrest chronic classes arrest rates persist throughout adult life. In multinomial logistic regression, homelessness, a co-occurring substance abuse diagnosis, fewer mental health outpatient service contacts and more mental health emergency room/inpatient contacts were associated with being in a class with more arrests. Arrests among offenders with a serious mental illness appear to be unusually high, to be firmly established in late adolescence and to persist over time. Successful strategies to reduce the arrest rates of this population must address the needs of these offenders early in their criminal careers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New maximum likelihood motion estimation schemes for noisy ultrasound images

When performing block-matching based motion estimation with the ML estimator, one would try to match blocks from the two images, within a predefined search area. The estimated motion vector is that which maximizes a likelihood function, formulated according to the image formation model. Two new maximum likelihood motion estimation schemes for ultrasound images are presented. The new likelihood functions are based on the assumption that both images are contaminated by a Rayleigh distributed multiplicative noise. The new approach enables motion estimation in cases where a noiseless reference image is not available. Experimental results show a motion estimation improvement with regards to other known ML estimation methods.     

Approximating the Visible Region of a Point on a Terrain

Given a terrain and a point p on or above it, we wish to compute the region R _p that is visible from p. We present a generic radar-like algorithm for computing an approximation of R _p . The algorithm interpolates the visible region between two consecutive rays (emanating from p) whenever the rays are close enough; that is, whenever the difference between the sets of visible segments along the cross sections in the directions specified by the rays is below some threshold. Thus the density of the sampling by rays is sensitive to the shape of the visible region. We suggest a specific way to measure the resemblance (difference) and to interpolate the visible region between two consecutive rays. We also present an alternative algorithm, which uses circles of increasing radii centered at p instead of rays emanating from p. Both algorithms compute a representation of the (approximated) visible region that is especially suitable for is-visible-from-p queries, i.e., given a query point q on the terrain determine whether q is visible from p. Finally, we report on the experiments that we performed with these algorithms and with their corresponding fixed versions, using a natural error measure. Our main conclusion is that the radar-like algorithm is significantly better than the others.     

On the Galerkin/Finite-Element Method for the Serre Equations

A highly accurate numerical scheme is presented for the Serre system of partial differential equations, which models the propagation of dispersive shallow water waves in the fully-nonlinear regime. The fully-discrete scheme utilizes the Galerkin / finite-element method based on smooth periodic splines in space, and an explicit fourth-order Runge–Kutta method in time. Computations compared with exact solitary and cnoidal wave solutions show that the scheme achieves the optimal orders of accuracy in space and time. These computations also show that the stability of this scheme does not impose very restrictive conditions on the temporal stepsize. In addition, solitary, cnoidal, and dispersive shock waves are studied in detail using this numerical scheme for the Serre system and compared with the ‘classical’ Boussinesq system for small-amplitude shallow water waves. The results show that the interaction of solitary waves in the Serre system is more inelastic. The efficacy of the numerical scheme for modeling dispersive shocks is shown by comparison with asymptotic results. These results have application to the modeling of shallow water waves of intermediate or large amplitude.     

Scheduling multipacket frames with frame deadlines

We consider scheduling information units called frames, each with a delivery deadline. Frames consist of packets, which arrive online in a roughly periodic fashion, and compete on allocation of transmission slots. A frame is deemed useful only if all its packets are delivered before its deadline. We focus on a “proportional” variant, where the value of each frame is proportional to its size, but the sizes and periods of the frames are arbitrary. We give a constant-competitive algorithm for this setting, assuming bounded jitter and some slack in the frames’ deadlines, the latter of which is necessary. Using standard techniques, our algorithm yields polylog-competitive algorithms for general instances with slack and bounded jitter.     

A quantitative foundation for defining and manipulating deals to facilitate automated e-commerce

We propose a goal programming framework that aims at automating e-commerce transactions. This framework consists of three basic layers: deal definition—defining the deal’s parameters and associated constraints (e.g., item, price, delivery dates); deal manipulation—a collection of procedures for shaping deals to attain desired goals (e.g., earliest delivery and minimum price) and an applications layer that employs these procedures within some negotiations settings (e.g., an auction-related application presents a “better offer” while bidding on a contract). Our proposed foundation is rich enough to support a wide array of applications ranging from 1-1 and 1-n negotiations (auctions) to deal valuation and deal splitting. Whereas the techniques are appropriate to a multitude of settings, we shall mainly present them in the context of business-to-business (B2B) commerce where we see the greatest short term benefits. O. Shmueli’s work is partially supported by the Fund for the Promotion of Research at the Technion.