A viral system to optimise the daily drayage problem

The intermodal transport chain can become more efficient by means of a good organisation of the drayage movements. Drayage in intermodal container terminals involves the pick up or delivery of containers at customer locations, and the main objective is normally the assignment of transportation tasks to the different vehicles, often with the presence of time windows. This paper focuses on a new approach to tackle the daily drayage problem by the use of viral system (VS). VS is a novel bio-inspired approach that makes use of a virus-infection biological analogy that is producing very satisfactory results when dealing with complex problems with huge feasibility region.Unión Europea TEC2013-47286-C3-3-

Bilateral capital physeal dysplasia in a ferret (Mustela putorius furo) treated with femoral head ostectomy

A six-month-old male entire ferret presented for investigation of atraumatic bilateral pelvic limb lameness. Radiographic and subsequent histopathological assessment of the femoral heads following bilateral femoral head ostectomy was consistent with capital physeal dysplasia. At six-months postoperatively, pelvic limb function was deemed normal with no evidence of ongoing discomfort. This is the first report of capital physeal dysplasia in the ferret and femoral head ostectomy appears to be an appropriate intervention in the management of these patients

Specific-purpose globalizations for Newton’s method: anisotropic optimization of curved meshes

We derive an optimization method to adapt straight-edged and curved piece-wise polynomial meshes to the stretching and alignment of a target metric. Two globalization strategies for the optimization method are proposed: backtracking line search and restricted trust region. To compare both globalization approaches, we derive a specific-purpose implementation of Newton’s method for each globalization. To propose these two new implementations, we present different emulation methods to interchange between both approaches their nonshared globalization features. Once the number of non-linear iterations is comparable, we have been able to improve the inexact Newton implementation, with both globalization methods, to reduce one order of magnitude the total number of sparse matrix-vector products. I

Measuring ERP Implementation Success with a Balanced Scorecard

The study develops a model for large scale ERP implementation success with the balanced scorecard indicators. Large scale ERP implementation success factors consist of project management competence, knowledge sharing, ERP system quality, understanding, user involvement, business process re-engineering, top management support, organization readiness. Business process re-engineering is the most important factor for achieving the ERP implementation success. It has the significant impact on enhancing organization learning, improving the business process, enhancing employee satisfaction, and obtaining financial benefits. Project management competence is essential to enhance employee satisfaction and financial benefit. Knowledge sharing has the positive impact on learning and financial benefits to the organization. The ERP system quality has a significant effect on improving the internal process of business and enhancing employee satisfaction. Surprisingly, top management support of large-scale ERP project is not related to achieve organization learning and financial benefits

Controlled laser texturing of titanium results in reliable osteointegration

We have developed a laser-textured superhydrophilic Ti-6Al-4V surface with unique surface chemistry and topography that substantially promotes osteoblast adhesion in culture. Here we investigate the osteointegration of laser-textured implants in an ovine model. Our hypothesis was that laser-textured implants, without any surface coating (LT), would encourage comparable amounts of bone-implant contact and interfacial strength when compared with widely accepted hydroxyapatite (HA) coated implants. Additionally, we hypothesized that LT would significantly increase bony integration compared with machine-finished (MF) and grit-blasted (GB) implants. Forty-eight tapered transcortical pins were implanted into six sheep. Four experimental groups (LT, HA, MF, and GB) were investigated (n = 12) and implants remained in vivo for 6 weeks. Bone apposition rates, interfacial shear strength, and bone-implant contact (BIC) were quantified. The interfacial strength of LT and HA implants were found to be significantly greater than GB (p = 0.032 and p = 0.004) and MF (p = 0.004 and p = 0.004, respectively), but no significant difference between LT and HA implants was observed. Significantly increased BIC was measured adjacent to HA implants when compared with both LT and GB implant surfaces (p = 0.022 and p = 0.006, respectively). No significant difference was found when LT and GB implants were compared. However, all surface finishes encouraged significantly increased BIC when compared with the MF surface. Maximizing implant fixation to host bone is vital for its long-term success. The production of an LT surface is a simple and cheap manufacturing process and this study demonstrated that laser-textured implants are a very promising technical development that warrants further research. © 2016 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res

Modeling Gambling: An Application of the Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement

The Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement (MPR) has proved a useful model for predicting and describing the behaviour of non-human animals on different schedules of reinforcement. This research tests the ability of MPR to accurately predict performance of adult humans on a simulated gambling task. A simulated electronic gaming machine was used in three experiments and gambling responses were reinforced according to series of Random Ratio schedules. In Experiment 1, when participants experienced either an ascending or descending order of ratios, rates of responding were well described by a bitonic response gradient. In Experiments 2 and 3 participants experienced either an early large win or an early large loss before experiencing a series of ratio schedule values that were presented in ascending order. Again rates of responding, expressed as a function of ratio schedule value, were well described by a bitonic response gradient. The early large loss condition produced higher response rates than the early large win condition. The bitonic response gradients of all conditions were well described by MPR via changes in the parameter a, specific activation

The Potential Impact of Gamification Elements on the Acceptance of Technology in the Context of Education: A Literature Review

Innovative new digital technologies arise within the field of education every day. There seems to be a large potential impact in using gamification for improving acceptance and use of new technologies in education. This study aims to gain better and new insights on how to improve the acceptance of new educational technology by applying gamification elements. To this aim, we performed a systematic literature review of 1271 publications, yielding 56 relevant studies. We positioned these studies based on which gamification element(s) and which educational technology acceptance constructs were discussed. Our results show that few studies focus on individual gamification elements and that most studies focus on the same elements and constructs, i.e. Learning Expectancy, Social Influence and Hedonic Motivation are the most discussed constructs related to increasing the acceptance of educational technology when applying gamification, while Points, Badges, Leaderboards and Social Games & Teamwork are the most discussed gamification elements. The impact of gamifying educational technology is mixed – both negative and positive results are being reported – and thus we conclude that the knowledge of how to successfully gamify educational technology is still limited