An integrated model for cash transfer system design problem

This paper presents an integrated model that incorporates strategic, tactical, and operational decisions for a cash transfer management system of a bank. The aim of the model is to decide on the location of cash management centers, number and routes of vehicles, and the cash inventory management policies to minimize the cost of owning and operating a cash transfer system while maintaining a pre-defined service level. Owing to the difficulty of finding optimal decisions in such integrated models, an iterative solution approach is proposed in which strategic, tactical, and operational problems are solved separately via a feedback mechanism. Numerical results show that such an approach is quite effective in reaching greatly improved solutions with just a few iterations, making it a promising approach for similar integrated models

Vehicle routing with arrival time diversification

Unpredictable routes may be generated by varying the arrival time at each customer over successive visits. Inspired by a real-life case in cash distribution, this study presents an efficient solution approach for the vehicle routing problem with arrival time diversification by formulating it as a vehicle routing problem with multiple time windows in a rolling horizon framework. Because waiting times are not allowed, a novel algorithm is developed to efficiently determine whether routes or local search operations are time window feasible. To allow infeasible solutions during the heuristic search, four different penalty methods are proposed. The proposed algorithm and penalty methods are evaluated in a simple iterated granular tabu search that obtains new best-known solutions for all benchmark instances from the literature, decreasing average distance by 29% and reducing computation time by 93%. A case study is conducted to illustrate the practical relevance of the proposed model and to examine the trade-off between arrival time diversification and transportation cost

Experiences in deploying metadata analysis tools for institutional repositories

Current institutional repository software provides few tools to help metadata librarians understand and analyze their collections. In this article, we compare and contrast metadata analysis tools that were developed simultaneously, but independently, at two New Zealand institutions during a period of national investment in research repositories: the Metadata Analysis Tool (MAT) at The University of Waikato, and the Kiwi Research Information Service (KRIS) at the National Library of New Zealand. The tools have many similarities: they are convenient, online, on-demand services that harvest metadata using OAI-PMH; they were developed in response to feedback from repository administrators; and they both help pinpoint specific metadata errors as well as generating summary statistics. They also have significant differences: one is a dedicated tool wheres the other is part of a wider access tool; one gives a holistic view of the metadata whereas the other looks for specific problems; one seeks patterns in the data values whereas the other checks that those values conform to metadata standards. Both tools work in a complementary manner to existing Web-based administration tools. We have observed that discovery and correction of metadata errors can be quickly achieved by switching Web browser views from the analysis tool to the repository interface, and back. We summarize the findings from both tools' deployment into a checklist of requirements for metadata analysis tools

Experiences in deploying metadata analysis tools for institutional repositories

Current institutional repository software provides few tools to help metadata librarians understand and analyze their collections. In this article, we compare and contrast metadata analysis tools that were developed simultaneously, but independently, at two New Zealand institutions during a period of national investment in research repositories: the Metadata Analysis Tool (MAT) at The University of Waikato, and the Kiwi Research Information Service (KRIS) at the National Library of New Zealand. The tools have many similarities: they are convenient, online, on-demand services that harvest metadata using OAI-PMH; they were developed in response to feedback from repository administrators; and they both help pinpoint specific metadata errors as well as generating summary statistics. They also have significant differences: one is a dedicated tool wheres the other is part of a wider access tool; one gives a holistic view of the metadata whereas the other looks for specific problems; one seeks patterns in the data values whereas the other checks that those values conform to metadata standards. Both tools work in a complementary manner to existing Web-based administration tools. We have observed that discovery and correction of metadata errors can be quickly achieved by switching Web browser views from the analysis tool to the repository interface, and back. We summarize the findings from both tools' deployment into a checklist of requirements for metadata analysis tools

Stranger Danger!

This article discusses the historical origins of the “stranger danger” myth, including the conditions that fueled the spread of panic. It explains how the myth was bolstered by increased media coverage, emotional appeals by parents, and public awareness campaigns. A number of important terms are defined and statistical information about child abductions in the United States is provided. Constructionist critiques of the “missing children” problem are explored as well as work that looks at the phenomenon through the lens of moral panic. A variety of social, legal, and ethical implications are discussed. The final sections assert the dangers of the myth, explain the difficulties involved in debunking the myth, and argue for the need to shift from fear-based responses to more rational responses that actually work to protect the most vulnerable populations of children (e.g., those who reside in abusive homes or experience harm at the hands of those known to them)

Energy system analysis of energy autonomous municipalities

Attention on decentralised autonomous energy systems has increased exponentially in the past three decades, as demonstrated by the absolute number of real-world projects and the share of publications in the corpus of scientific literature. This is due to the energy transition and the related environmental awareness as well as the desire of citizens to play an active role in energy supply and to be less dependent on central markets and structures. However, local decision-makers, who often lack the necessary expertise, need decision support in energy system planning. To this end, this thesis follows the objective to develop novel methods for the technical, economic and environmental assessment of a large number of completely energy autonomous municipalities and their impacts on the overall energy system. Completely energy autonomous municipalities are disconnected from the gas and electricity grid and supply themselves with energy from plants owned and operated by the municipality. Novel methods of energy system analysis were developed in this thesis as part of seven original research articles. Germany is used as a case study, but the general approach, methods and results are transferable to other contexts. First of all, the 11,131 German municipalities were clustered with regard to their suitability for decentralised energy systems. Based on this municipality typology, representative municipalities were selected to be investigated in an already existing holistic municipal energy system optimisation model (RE³ASON). This model was extended by novel and transferable approaches to design deep geothermal plants and district heating networks. These base-load capable technologies were selected to reduce the storage costs in energy autonomous municipalities. The technical feasibility and economic expenditures of energy autonomy could finally be determined in all 11,131 German municipalities by combining the extended energy system optimisation model with a stepwise linear regression. The energy system optimisations showed that in the case of complete energy autonomy, deep geothermal plants in combination with district heating networks could reduce the total costs by up to 50%. On average, the energy system costs until 2030 in German municipalities increase by about 0.41 €/kWh in the energy autonomous case compared to the optimised reference case with grid connection. While a technical potential to achieve energy autonomy is present in 56% of the German municipalities, there seem to be no economic advantages through energy autonomy compared to the optimised reference energy system. The novel methodological approach of this thesis enabled to obtain optimisation results for a high number of energy systems (6,314 municipalities) with practicable computational expenses. In addition to the original data and planning tools published alongside the articles, the findings of this thesis can also support local decision makers in determining suitable municipal energy systems. In order to increase the realizability of the case study results, some methodological extensions should be investigated in future studies such as other perspectives than that of a central planner, higher temporal model resolutions or social aspects like consumer acceptance of specific technologies or a security of supply below 100%