Scheduling emergency medicine residents (EMRs) is a complex task, which considers a large number of rules (often conflicting) related to various aspects such as limits on the number of consecutive work hours, number of day and night shifts that should be worked by each resident, resident staffing requirements according to seniority levels for the day and night shifts, restrictions on the number of consecutive day and night shifts assigned, vacation periods, weekend off requests, and fair distribution of responsibilities among the residents. Emergency rooms (ERs) are stressful workplaces, and in addition shift work is well-known to be more demanding than regular daytime work. For this reason, preparing schedules that suit the working rules for EMRs is especially important for reducing the negative impact on shift workers physiologically, psychologically, and socially. In this paper, we present a goal programming (GP) model that accommodates both hard and soft constraints for a monthly planning horizon. The hard constraints should be adhered to strictly, whereas the soft constraints can be violated when necessary. The relative importance values of the soft constraints have been computed by the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), which are used as coefficients of the deviations from the soft constraints in the objective function. The model has been tested in the ER of a major local university hospital. The main conclusions of the study are that problems of realistic size can be solved quickly and the generated schedules have very high qualities compared to the manually prepared schedules, which require a lot of effort and time from the chief resident who is responsible for this duty. 相似文献
Accurate age modeling, and fast, yet robust reliability sign-off emerged as mandatory constraints in Integrated Circuits (ICs) design for advanced process technology nodes. In this paper we introduce a novel method to assess and predict the circuit reliability at design time as well as at run-time. The main goal of our proposal is to allow for: (i) design time reliability optimization; (ii) fine tuning of the run-time reliability assessment infrastructure, and (iii) run-time aging assessment. To this end, we propose to select a minimum-size kernel of critical transistors and based on them to assess and predict an IC End-Of-Life (EOL) via two methods: (i) as the sum of the critical transistors end-of-life values, weighted by fixed topology-dependent coefficients, and (ii) by a Markovian framework applied to the critical transistors, which takes into account the joint effects of process, environmental, and temporal variations. The former model exploits the aging dependence on the circuit topology to enable fast run-time reliability assessment with minimum aging sensors requirements. By allowing the performance boundary to vary in time such that both remnant and nonremnant variations are encompassed, and imposing a Markovian evolution, the probabilistic model can be better fitted to various real conditions, thus enabling at design-time appropriate guardbands selection and effective aging mitigation/compensation techniques. The proposed framework has been validated for different stress conditions, under process variations and aging effects, for the ISCAS-85 c499 circuit, in PTM 45 nm technology. From the total of 1526 transistors, we obtained a kernel of 15 critical transistors, for which the set of topology dependent weights were derived. Our simulation results for 15 critical transistors kernel indicate a small approximation error (i.e., mean smaller than 15% and standard deviation smaller than 6%) for the considered circuit estimated end-of-life (EOL), when comparing to the end-of-life values obtained from Cadence simulation, which quantitatively confirm the accuracy of the IC lifetime evaluation. Moreover, as the number of critical transistors determines the area overhead, we also investigated the implications of reducing their number on the reliability assessment accuracy. When only 5 transistors are included into the critical set instead of 15, which results in a 66% area overhead reduction, the EOL estimation accuracy diminished with 18%. This indicates that area vs. accuracy trade-offs are possible, while maintaining the aging prediction accuracy within reasonable bounds. 相似文献
Technological infrastructure at home is changing continuously and is becoming increasingly interconnected. Media devices, including the TV set, provide access to the Internet and offer manifold opportunities to consume media on demand. Additionally, personal devices, such as smartphones, also enable flexible consumption and sharing of media. Questions about how these technologies change the user's media usage and how these changes affect the social structure of a household, however, remain largely unanswered. In order to gain insight into the adoption of new technologies into daily routines, we explored these changes in respect of people's media usage in a qualitative long-term Living Lab study. We will present findings regarding personal routines, flexible integration of new devices into existing practices, influences on households as social systems and related issues in device access and collective use. We will highlight potentials and conflicts regarding device shifts and roles; restrictions in device access; social influences in the living room; and individual changes in media consumption. 相似文献
The process of aging precipitation in SiC_p/6061 and Al_2O_3/6061 composites were investigated. Hardness testing, differential scanning calorimetry(DSC) and transmission electron microscopy were employed. Results showed that the precipitation phase form directly along dislocation lines in the composites because the particles produce high densities of dislocations which makes vacancy densities in the composites decrease, and the main precipitation phase at peak hardness was β′ phase. 相似文献
The effects of thickness and types of gold plating on the resistance to high temperature discoloration of gold plating on cavity surface of ceramic package were investigated. It was found that the thicker gold plating, the less discoloration degree for ceramic packages. Non-cyanide gold plating performed better resistance to high-temperature aging than cyanide gold plating. The relationship between the gold plating thickness and the amount of diffused Ni to the gold plating of ceramic packages with Au/Ni and Au/Ni-Co platings after heating at 420℃for 15 min was also studied. When the gold plating thickness reach 2.0 μm and 1.6 μm for Au/Ni and Au/Ni-Co plating systems, respectively, no discoloration was observed on the gold plating surface of cavity, and the corresponding diffused Ni amounts (mass fraction) are 1.0% and 0.4%, while the diffused Co to the gold plating is 0.04%. 相似文献
The effects of γ/γ interfacial structures on continuous coarsening of the fully lamellar microstructure in Ti-48Al alloy aged at 1 150 ℃ were investigated by using transmission electron microscopy(TEM). Continuous lamellar coarsening can be achieved not only by migration of interface faults(such as ledges, edges and curved interfaces) but also by migration and decomposition of perfect γ/γ lamellar interfaces. Thermal grooves, initiative positions of interfacial dissociation, can frequently form at the triple point junctions between the 120°-rotational ordered γ domain boundaries within γ lamellae and the lamellar interfaces. During the early stage of aging at 1 150 ℃, the interface migration and dissociation took place preferentially at the 120°-rotational ordered lamellar interfaces. Comparing the relative thermal stability of the true-twin, pseudo-twin and 120°-rotational ordered γ/γ lamellar interfaces shows that the 120°-rotational ordered lamellar interface is the most unstable. The reason of this phenomenon was analyzed through the comparisons of the interfacial energies and atomic arrangements of the three types of γ/γ lamellar interfaces. 相似文献
Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CONPs), widely used in catalytic applications owing to their robust redox reaction, are now being considered in therapeutic applications based on their enzyme mimetic properties such as catalase and super oxide dismutase (SOD) mimetic activities. In therapeutic applications, the emerging demand for CONPs with low cytotoxicity, high cost efficiency, and high enzyme mimetic capability necessitates the exploration of alternative synthesis and effective material design. This study presents a room temperature aqueous synthesis for low-cost production of shape-selective CONPs without potentially harmful organic substances, and additionally, investigates cell viability and catalase and SOD mimetic activities. This synthesis, at room temperature, produced CONPs with particular planes: {111}/{100} nanopolyhedra, {100} nano/submicron cubes, and {111}/{100} nanorods that grew in [110] longitudinal direction. Enzymatic activity assays indicated that nanopolyhedra with a high concentration of Ce4+ ions promoted catalase mimetic activity, while nanocubes and nanorods with high Ce3+ ion concentrations enhanced SOD mimetic activity. This is the first study indicating that shape and facet configuration design of CONPs, coupled with the retention of dominant, specific Ce valence states, potentiates enzyme mimetic activities. These findings may be utilized for CONP design aimed at enhancing enzyme mimetic activities in therapeutic applications.