Multi-skilled Labor Optimization with Partial Allocation of Resources

The current practice of labor allocation in construction schedules assumes single-skilled workforce; meaning that each worker is assumed to be skilled in only one trade. In such practice, at any instance in the project lifecycle, some of the workforce become idle waiting for other labor types to complete their work. Traditionally, companies may relocate idle workers to other projects and return them back to their original project when needed again. This complicates the resource management process and is not often performed successfully, leading to schedule and cost overruns. Alternatively, project managers may keep the idle workforce at their projects because they will be needed at a later stage and pay them in their idle days, which adds unnecessary costs to the project. Another solution would be continuously hiring and laying off labor at need, which has severe negative impacts on projects and firms. Due to the inefficiencies of these solutions, some research discussed the idea of “multi-skilled” labor, where some of the workers may have enough training to carry out different activity types. Multi-skilling decreases inefficiencies and ensures a smooth and continuous progress of works whilst maintaining the workforce and keeping their idle time to a minimum. Multi-skilling could be also used to speed up progress in construction schedules. Previous research efforts have been made to encourage contractors in pursuing multiskilling as a solution to the non-smooth resource histograms. Yet, the literature falls short in providing a robust multi-skilling framework; specifically, one that considers the cost of training labor and solves the partial allocation problem. The objective of this research is to improve project duration and minimize unnecessary costs through the utilization of multi-skilled labor. Through a multi-step methodology, a model that optimizes the allocation of multi-skilled labor resources was developed. The novelty of the presented model is that it further minimizes the idle times of labor when compared to previous multi-skilled labor models, due to its capability in allocating resources “partially” to segments of activities rather than to full activities. In other words, unlike previous models, the developed model recognizes the fact that a crew can work for a period of time in an activity, then some workers in that crew can be allocated to another activity, leaving the rest of the crew to complete the first activity. The model allows the user to enter any number of activities and up to ten different resource types. With the use of genetic algorithms idle resources are assigned to activities that require additional manpower in order to reduce their durations, and in turn reduce the project’s indirect costs. When applied to a case study, the model generated promising results, where the reduction in duration between the single skilled allocation and multi-skilled labor allocation was 31% and this reduction jumped to 44% when partial allocation was applied. Multiskilling did not only reduce the idle labor days, but it will also shift the resource usage histogram’s end point to the left, reducing the total project duration. This did not only reduce the unnecessary costs being paid to workers on days where they have no work, but it also reduced the total indirect costs which are directly proportional to the overall project duration

Manual digital para estimular psicomotricidad gruesa, niños 2-3 años, Centro de Atención Integral Primera Infancia

El presente proyecto habla sobre el desarrollo psicomotriz de los niños en sus primeros años de vida y su importancia para contribuir a fortalecer sus potencialidades y habilidades psicomotrices, ya que, a medida que su sistema nervioso va madurando, sus movimientos serán más complejos y fáciles de desarrollar. La etapa de la primera infancia es la más importante, ya que es a la edad de 0-3 años cuando los niños van desarrollando su plasticidad cerebral para tener mejor desarrollo integral, lo cual dependerá de la atención temprana adecuada que haya recibido. Capítulo I: Se muestran gráficas sobre la situación actual ante el problema del desarrollo psicomotriz a nivel nacional e internacional. Se describe la justificación del proyecto y cuáles son los objetivos al instante de ejecutar las actividades de estimulación temprana, acorde a la edad de cada niño y el tiempo que durará. Se ubicó la localización del CAIPI y se delimita quienes son los beneficiarios directos e indirectos con la realización de las actividades. Capítulo II: Describe algunas definiciones de las principales áreas de la psicomotricidad gruesa, como también se mencionan las Instituciones responsables para que el proyecto se diera a cabo y se muestra la realización del manual digital. Capítulo III: Se grafican los resultados obtenidos a la aplicación de las actividades que se le realizaron a los niños del CAIPI “Caminitos del Saber”, se mencionan algunas recomendaciones a los padres de familia, se presenta algunos instrumentos de evaluación utilizados y los materiales comprados para la ejecución de dichas actividades. Para finalizar, en los anexos se muestran los instrumentos de evaluación, imágenes de los niños realizando las actividades y los materiales utilizados

Cascade of Nonlinear Entropy and Statistics to Discriminate Fetal Heart Rates

International audience—Fetal heart rate discrimination is an evolving field in biomedical engineering with many efforts dedicated to avoid preterm deliveries by way of improving fetus monitoring methods and devices. Entropy analysis is a nonlinear signal analysis technique that has been progressively developed to improve the discriminability of a several physiological signals, with Kernel based entropy parameters (KBEPs) found advantageous over standard techniques. This study is the first to apply KBEPs to analyze fetal heart rates. Specifically, it explores the usability of the cutting-edge nonlinear KBEPs in discriminating between healthy fetuses and fetuses under distress. The database used in this study comprises 50 healthy and 50 distressed fetal heart rate signals with severe intrauterine growth restriction. The Cascade analysis investigates six kernel based entropy measures on fetal heart rates discrimination, and compares them to four standard entropies. The study presents a statistical evaluation of the discrimination power of each parameter (paired t-test statistics and distribution spread). Simulation results showed that the distribution ranges in 80% of the entropy parameters in the distressed heart group are higher than those in the healthy control group. Moreover, the results show that it is advantageous to choose Circular entropy then Cauchy entropy (p < 0.001) over the standard techniques, in order to discriminate fetal heart rates

Offshore Kinetic Energy Potential of Peninsular Malaysia by Using Hybrid Site Selection Method

The rapid growth of the global population and technological advancements have resulted in an exponential increase in energy demand. The usage of fossil fuels will lead to the production of greenhouse gases, which will cause changes in weather, significant health problems, sea-level rise, and changes in the ecosystem, all of which will jeopardise human’s life. According on this information, all nations have begun to undertake plans to at least prevent these situations, including examining their energy strategies and regulations and proposing various methods, one of which is the use of renewable energy resources. The continual negative repercussions were all caused by a single factor: the extensive usage of non-renewable energies

The Arabic Version of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised : psychometric evaluation among psychiatric patients and the general public within the context of COVID-19 outbreak and quarantine as collective traumatic events

The Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has provoked the development of negative emotions in almost all societies since it first broke out in late 2019. The Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) is widely used to capture emotions, thoughts, and behaviors evoked by traumatic events, including COVID-19 as a collective and persistent traumatic event. However, there is less agreement on the structure of the IES-R, signifying a need for further investigation. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the IES-R among individuals in Saudi quarantine settings, psychiatric patients, and the general public during the COVID-19 outbreak. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the items of the IES-R present five factors with eigenvalues > 1. Examination of several competing models through confirmatory factor analysis resulted in a best fit for a six-factor structure, which comprises avoidance, intrusion, numbing, hyperarousal, sleep problems, and irritability/dysphoria. Multigroup analysis supported the configural, metric, and scalar invariance of this model across groups of gender, age, and marital status. The IES-R significantly correlated with the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-8, perceived health status, and perceived vulnerability to COVID-19, denoting good criterion validity. HTMT ratios of all the subscales were below 0.85, denoting good discriminant validity. The values of coefficient alpha in the three samples ranged between 0.90 and 0.93. In path analysis, correlated intrusion and hyperarousal had direct positive effects on avoidance, numbing, sleep, and irritability. Numbing and irritability mediated the indirect effects of intrusion and hyperarousal on sleep and avoidance. This result signifies that cognitive activation is the main factor driving the dynamics underlying the behavioral, emotional, and sleep symptoms of collective COVID-19 trauma. The findings support the robust validity of the Arabic IES-R, indicating it as a sound measure that can be applied to a wide range of traumatic experiences

Assessment of Some Mango Species by Fruit Characters and Fingerprint

Abstract: Six local mango accessions; Zebda, Zaghloul, Gemela, Ganofia, El-Madam and ElKobbaneia were collected from private farm in Sharkia Governorate. Physical and chemical characteristics of fruits study besides of molecular characterization (as total proteins). The data showed that El-Kobbaneia fruit had the biggest fruit also El-Madam produced the smallest one. The lowest fiber percentage was clear in Ganofia fruit followed by Zebda fruit as compared with all mango fruits under study. The highest fruit Juice percentage was shown in El-Kobbaneia fruit, while Ganofia fruit had the lowest one. Also, the lowest titrable acidity was clear in Ganofia fruit, but the highest one was detected in Zebda fruit. Meanwhile, the highest total sugar was clear in Gemela fruit. However, El-Madam fruit had the lowest VC. The highest total number of variable bands (seven) was existed in Zebda species while the lowest number was presented in Ganofia species (2 bands). The percentage of polymorphism in all mango species ranged between 16.7% in both EL-Kobbaneia and Gemela species to 29.2 % in Zebda species

Prevalence of Neospora caninum and Toxoplasma gondii Antibodies and DNA in Raw Milk of Various Ruminants in Egypt.

The prevalence of Neospora caninum and Toxoplasma gondii antibodies in raw milk samples was estimated in different ruminants and Egyptian governorates. Of 13 bulk milk samples tested by ELISA, five (38.5%) were positive for antibodies to N. caninum, and two samples were additionally positive for antibodies to T. gondii, resulting in a seroprevalence of 15.4% for both T. gondii and co-infection. In individual milk samples (n = 171) from the same bulks, antibodies to N. caninum were detected in 25.7%, to T. gondii in 14%, and 3.5% had antibodies to both parasites. A strong correlation between the OD values of the bulk samples and of the relevant individual milk samples was found for T. gondii (Pearson r = 0.9759) and moderately strong for N. caninum (Pearson r = 0.5801). Risk factor assessment for individual milk samples revealed that antibodies to T. gondii were significantly influenced by animal species, while no risk factors were detected for N. caninum antibodies. Additionally, DNA of N. caninum was detected in a bulk milk sample of cattle for the first time in Egypt, and DNA of T. gondii was found in bulk milk samples of cattle, sheep and goats. This is the first study in Egypt in which bulk milk samples of different ruminants were tested for the presence of N. caninum and T. gondii antibodies and DNA. Both individual and bulk milk samples are useful tools for monitoring antibody response to N. caninum and T. gondii infections in different ruminants in Egypt

Relay intercropping of maize with common dry beans to rationalize nitrogen fertilizer

Maize (Zea mays L.) and dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are important staple food and cash crops worldwide. Common bean in an intercrop with maize contributes to biological nitrogen fixation, which stabilize productivity of cropping systems and reduce negative environmental impacts and loss of biodiversity for sustainable agriculture. A field experiments was performed during the years of 2020 and 2021 at Sers El-Layian Station, northern Egypt. The current study aiming to study the effect of three sowing dates of maize, represent 3 co-growth duration [T1: at flowering stage (FS) of common beans (60 days co-growth duration), T2: 15 days after FS (45 days co-growth duration), and T3: 30 days after FS (30 days co-growth duration with beans)] and three N fertilizer levels (N1: 190.4, N2: 238.0, and N3: 285.6 kg N/ha of maize) on productivity, profitability and N fertilizer rationalization. The longest co-growth duration of maize intercropping with common beans (T1) significantly (P ≤ 0.05) decreased common beans and maize yields compared with T2 and T3. Performance of common beans did not show (P ≤ 0.05) any variation under different N fertilizer levels of maize. Significant (P ≤ 0.05) increase in maize yield and its components with raising N fertilizer level up to N3. Although there was no significant variation in maize yield when applied N2 and N3, however, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) was significant (P ≤ 0.05) higher in N2 than N3 by 18.34%. Regardless of planting time and N fertilizer level of maize, combined productivity of common beans and maize increased in the intercropped system as cleared by higher total land equivalent ratios (LER) and area time equivalent ratios (ATER). Highest LER value 1.99 was observed at the shortest co-growth period T3 under N3 followed by 1.97 with N2. Positive values in the actual yield loss index (AYL) indicated intercropping advantage. Different competition indices showed a greater dominance of maize over common beans (aggressivity, Ag; competitive ratio, CR; actual yield losses, AYL). However, the intercropping systems increased the economic advantage (intercropping advantage index, IAI and monetary advantage index MAI) over monoculture. These results imply that shortening the period of co-growth maize with common beans (T3) and applying 238.0 kg N/ha in the relay intercropping system reduced mineral N fertilizer use by 16.67% compared to the advised level 285.6 kg N/ha along with increased productivity per unit area and economic advantages for small-farmer