Operational airline reserve crew planning

Airlines are continually faced with the challenge of efficient utilization of their cockpit crew resources. In addition to regular flying crews, some airlines have to maintain significant reserve staffing levels to meet contractual obligations and provide smooth daily operations. Reserve crews are required to cover trips remaining unassigned due to disruptions during daily operations. Airlines using a bidline system to award crew work schedules require additional reserves to cover scheduling conflicts, which result in trips dropping out of optimized bidlines. Whenever reserves are unavailable to cover these trips during daily operations, the airline has to pay a premium to cover these trips using regular pilots. The resulting operating expenses can be significant. Furthermore, inefficient utilization of reserves can cause excessive long-range crew staffing resulting in additional training and new hire expenses. In this paper, we propose a new optimization strategy to increase reserve crew utilization and build monthly reserve crew work schedules by addressing the issue of scheduling conflicts and daily operational reserve requirements.     

EVENT TRACKING IN A DYNAMIC MULTIAGENT ENVIRONMENT

In a dynamic, multiagent environment, an automated intelligent agent is often faced with the possibility that other agents may instigate events that hinder or help the achievement of its own goals. To act intelligently in such an environment, an automated agent needs an event tracking capability to continually monitor the occurrence of such events and the temporal relationships among them. This capability enables an agent to infer the occurrence of important unobserved events as well as to obtain a better understanding of the interaction among events. This article focuses on event tracking in one complex and dynamic multiagent environment: the air-combat simulation environment. It analyzes the challenges that an automated pilot agent must face when tracking events in this environment. This analysis reveals three new issues that have not been addressed in previous work in this area: (i) tracking events generated by agents' flexible and reactive behaviors, (ii) tracking events in the context of continuous agent interactions, and (iii) tracking events in real time. This article proposes one solution to address these issues. One key idea in this solution is that the (architectural) mechanisms that an agent employs in generating its own flexible and reactive behaviors can be used to track other agents' flexible and reactive behaviors in real time. A second key idea is the use of a world-centered representation for modeling agent interactions. The solution is demonstrated using an implementation of an automated pilot agent.     

A compiler for exploiting nested parallelism in OpenMP programs

This paper presents the design and implementation of a parallelization framework and OpenMP runtime support in Intel^® C++ & Fortran compilers for exploiting nested parallelism in applications using OpenMP pragmas or directives. We conduct the performance evaluation of two multimedia applications parallelized with OpenMP pragmas and compiled with the Intel C++ compiler on Hyper-Threading Technology (HT) enabled multiprocessor systems. The performance results show that the multithreaded code generated by the Intel compiler achieved a speedup up to 4.69 on 4 processors with HT enabled for five different input video sequences for the H.264 encoder workload, and a 1.28 speedup on an HT enabled single-CPU system and 1.99 speedup on an HT-enabled dual-CPU system for the audio–visual speech recognition workload. The performance gain due to exploiting nested parallelism for leveraging Hyper-Threading Technology is up to 70% for two multimedia workloads under different multiprocessor system configurations. These results demonstrate that hyper-threading benefits can be achieved by exploiting nested parallelism through Intel compiler and runtime system support for OpenMP programs.     

Coverage of rough substrates by ZnS using vacuum evaporation and atomic layer epitaxy

The effects of various deposition techniques on the growth of ZnS thin films on a sintered BaTiO₃-based complex perovskite substrate, using the scanning electron microscope have been studied. The results clearly show a non-uniform and incomplete coverage of the sub strate in the case of films grown by electron-beam evaporation and resistance-heated evaporation. A shadowing effect is observed in these films. Increase in the thickness of the films tends to decrease the shadowing effect. On the contrary, films grown by the atomic layer epitaxy method, exhibit a complete and uniform coverage of the substrate, even for thin (< 100 nm) ZnS films.     

Increase in endocervical CD4 lymphocytes among women with nonulcerative sexually transmitted diseases

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP) subjected to high sodium intake develop severe hypertension, cerebral edema, and proteinuria, culminating in organ damage and early death. MRI, which can be applied serially, provides the unique opportunity to study temporal and quantitative relations between these changes and whether diminution of sodium intake can attenuate established cerebral edema. METHODS: SHRSP were subjected to 1% NaCl in drinking water. Cerebral MRI, proteinuria and systolic blood pressure (SBP) were measured serially. After detection of cerebral edema (T2-weighted MRI), 6 rats were killed for histology, to confirm the diagnosis of cerebral edema. The others were followed up for 7 more days while salt loading was continued (n = 10, group 1) or after sodium intake was normalized (n = 7, group 2). RESULTS: SHRSP invariably developed cerebral edema in 30 days (range, 8 to 54 days). At this point neurological signs were absent in 16 of 23 rats. SBP rose until 1 week before detection of cerebral edema, and then stabilized at approximately 265 mm Hg. Proteinuria invariably preceded cerebral edema, with a concentration exceeding 40 mg/d predicting development of cerebral edema in 9 days (range, 3 to 15 days). There was linear correlation (R=.62, P<.0001) between proteinuria and cerebral edema (pixels with an intensity above a defined threshold). Rats in group 1 showed an increase in cerebral edema (from 5.8+/-1.1% to 12.5+/-2.8%; P<.05), and proteinuria remained high (from 305+/-44 to 338+/-29 mg/d); and 2 died spontaneously. Rats in group 2 showed no significant change in edema (from 4.9+/-0.5% to 6.9+/-1.3%) but a marked fall in proteinuria (from 294+/-24 to 119+/-10 mg/d; P<.05), both significantly different from group 1 (P<.05); all survived. SBP remained unaltered in both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our data establish MRI as a sensitive method for detection of cerebral edema, often prior to neurological signs, in SHRSP. Proteinuria predicts cerebral edema, and these two variables, both obtained noninvasively, are quantitatively related. Moreover, in SHRSP normalizing sodium intake after salt loading attenuates development of cerebral edema and reduces proteinuria.     

Electroremediation of Naphthalene in Aqueous Solution Using Alternating and Direct Currents

The key objectives of this study were to evaluate the use of an alternating current (AC) for the degradation of naphthalene in spiked aqueous solutions and to investigate the effect of current density on the degradation rates of naphthalene. Direct current (DC) was also used to compare the rates of degradation. Sodium chloride (NaCl) and anhydrous sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) were used as the supporting electrolytes. Degradation rates and byproducts formed were investigated when DC and AC were separately passed through naphthalene solutions. A square wave AC, having a frequency equal to 0.1?Hz was used. Naphthalene solutions having an initial concentration of about 20?mg/L ( ～ 0.15?mM) were subjected to an AC peak current density and DC density of 6?mA/cm2, using NaCl as the supporting electrolyte. An approximate 65% reduction in the concentration of naphthalene was observed after a period of 48 h when DC was applied. Degradation was almost 100% when the AC was applied during the 48-h period. The effect of current density on the electrochemical degradation rate of naphthalene in aqueous solution was also investigated at alternating and direct current densities of 1, 3, and 6?mA/cm2 using Na2SO4 as the supporting electrolyte. AC peak current densities of 1, 3, and 6?mA/cm2 resulted in overall conversions of 77, 87, and 95%, respectively, of naphthalene in solution. The corresponding values for DC application were 95% for all current densities while the initial degradation rates were greater at higher DC densities. Based on the degradation products formed, hydroxylation is believed to be the key mechanism for the degradation of naphthalene.     

Climate impacts of air quality policy: switching to a natural gas-fueled public transportation system in New Delhi

Between 2001 and 2003, public transport vehicles in New Delhi were required to switch their fuel to natural gas in an attemptto reduce their air pollution impacts. This study examines the climatic impacts of New Delhi's fuel switching policy, and outlines implications for such efforts in rapidly industrializing countries. Natural gas is mostly composed of methane, an important greenhouse gas. Emitted aerosols (black carbon, particulate organic carbon, and sulfate) also cause radiative forcing. We find that methane and black carbon emissions are critical contributors to the change in carbon dioxide equivalent [CO2(e)] emissions. In New Delhi, the switch to natural gas results in a 30% increase in CO2(e) when the impact of aerosols is not considered. However, when aerosol emissions are taken into account in our model, the net effect of the switch is estimated to be a 10% reduction in CO2(e), and there may be as much as a 30% reduction in CO2(e). There is significant potential for emissions reductions through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Clean Development Mechanism for such fuel switching projects.     

Effect of load/unload process on friction/stiction and durability of head-disk interface

 Effect of various operating parameters viz. load/unload speed, disk speed, ramp height, and disk dynamics on load/unload performance, friction/stiction and durability of a head-disk interface (HDI) were studied. Load/unload performance was evaluated using acoustic emission signals and friction force measurements. The load/unload performance was found to be better for higher load/unload durations, lower disk speeds and higher ramp heights. The effect of ramp height was studied for two different slider suspension designs. A slider suspension with `A' type suspension design performed well for higher ramp heights. The slider with `B' suspension design was not affected by a change in ramp height. Disk dynamics studies indicated how strongly HDI can be affected by disk vibrations and supported the effect seen by varying ramp heights. Durability tests revealed that the HDI deteriorated faster for lower ramp heights for a slider with `A' type suspension design than for the slider with `B' type suspension design. Received: 22 February 2002/Accepted: 20 June 2002     

Experiences Acquired in the Design of RoboCup Teams: A Comparison of Two Fielded Teams

Increasingly, multi-agent systems are being designed for a variety of complex, dynamic domains. Effective agent interactions in such domains raise some of the most fundamental research challenges for agent-based systems, in teamwork, multi-agent learning and agent modelling. The RoboCup research initiative, particularly the simulation league, has been proposed to pursue such multi-agent research challenges, using the common testbed of simulation soccer. Despite the significant popularity of RoboCup within the research community, general lessons have not often been extracted from participation in RoboCup. This is what we attempt to do here. We have fielded two teams, ISIS97 and ISIS98, in RoboCup competitions. These teams have been in the top four teams in these competitions. We compare the teams, and attempt to analyze and generalize the lessons learned. This analysis reveals several surprises, pointing out lessons for teamwork and for multi-agent learning.     

Leachate Recirculation Using Permeable Blankets in Engineered Landfills

Subsurface leachate recirculation or liquid injection methods for municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are horizontal trenches, vertical wells, and permeable blankets. In this study, results of field-scale testing and numerical modeling of a recently developed subsurface leachate recirculation system called permeable blankets have been presented. In the field, at a MSW landfill located in Michigan, the travel of injected leachate in a 60-m-wide by 9-m-long by 0.15-m-deep blanket made up of crushed recycled glass was measured using an automated sensing system consisting of sensors embedded in the blanket. Leachate injection rates used in the field and simulated in this study ranged from 1.1 to 3.6?m3/h per meter length of the injection pipe embedded in the permeable blanket. HYDRUS-2D was used to simulate the travel and pressure head of injected leachate in permeable blankets. The influence of the following parameters on the hydraulic performance of permeable blankets was evaluated: (1) hydraulic properties of permeable blanket and waste; (2) geometry of permeable blanket; (3) settlement of permeable blanket; (4) leachate dosing frequency; and (5) initial degrees of saturation of permeable blanket and waste. The key findings of the study are: (1) the rate and maximum distance of travel of injected leachate are a strong function of the relative hydraulic properties of the permeable blanket and underlying waste and the rate and frequency of leachate injection; and (2) the maximum pressure head in the blanket due to liquid injection does not exceed the injection pressure. The field data and the numerical modeling results indicated that permeable blankets can be designed to inject liquids or recirculate leachate in MSW landfills. Long-term performance of such blankets needs to be evaluated.