5,018 research outputs found
Application of Computer Simulation Modeling to Evaluate Business Continuity Plans
Business continuity plans (BCP) help organizations plan for and withstand the occurrence of unexpected events that interrupt the normal operation of business. Managers typically develop several alternate plans to minimize the business impact of unexpected events. The problem for decision makers is that comparative evaluation of BCP is typically done using subjective judgments.
This research uses a case study approach focusing on a single organization and a single business continuity application to propose the use of computer simulation as a tool for managers to identify and evaluate different BCP prior to committing resources. In the context of an insurance firm, a specific plan was evaluated using simulation methods. A simulation model was used to model the operational aspects of the call center in an insurance company. After the model was validated, it was used to answer questions about what-if scenarios.
Results suggest that scenario analysis using simulated model enables managers to ask useful questions that can help evaluate the plan. Managers at the insurance company used the simulation model to determine the level of service required and evaluate business continuity strategies to achieve it
Towards a TDD maturity model through an anti-patterns framework
Agile software development has been adopted in the industry to quickly react
to business change. Since its inception both academia and industry debate the
different shades that agile processes and technical practices play in the
day-to-day of students and professional developers. Efforts have been made to
understand the pros and cons of the Test Driven Development (TDD) practice to
develop software as part of a professional environment. Despite the effort of
practitioners to list the TDD anti-patterns that unveil undesired effects in
the code when practicing TDD, work is needed to understand the causes that lead
to that. In that sense, this paper proposes a research project that explores
the TDD anti-patterns context and what leads practitioners to face them in the
software development context. As a result, we expect to offer a TDD maturity
framework to help practitioners in the process of writing code guided by tests
and prevent the addition of anti-pattern
A comparative analysis between two statistical deviationâbased consensus measures in group decision making problems
The mean absolute deviation and the standard deviation, two statistical measures commonly used in quantifying variability, may become an interesting tool when defining consensus measures. Two consensus indexes which obtain the level of consensus in some problems of Group Decision Making are introduced in this paper by expanding the aforementioned statistical concepts. A comparative analysis reveals that the levels of consensus derived from these indexes are close to those obtained employing distance functions when a fuzzy preference relations frame is considered, so they turn out to be a useful tool in this context. In addition, these indexes are different from each other and with the distance functions considered. Thus, they are applicable tools in the calculation of consensus in our context and are different from those commonly used
Learning-Based Adaptation for Personalized Mobility Assistance
Mobility assistance is of key importance for people with disabilities to remain autonomous in their preferred environments. In severe cases, assistance can be provided by robotized wheelchairs that can perform complex maneuvers and/or correct the userâs commands. Userâs acceptance is of key importance, as some users do not like their commands to be modified. This work presents a solution to improve acceptance. It consists of making the robot learn how the user drives so corrections will not be so noticeable to the user. Case Based Reasoning (CBR) is used to acquire a userâs driving model reactive level. Experiments with volunteers at Fondazione Santa Lucia (FSL) have proven that, indeed, this customized approach at assistance increases acceptance by the user.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (MEC), Project TEC2011-29106-C02-01. The authors would like to thank Santa Lucia Hospedale and all volunteers for their kind cooperation and Sauer Medica for providing the power wheelchair
Study of tyrosine and dopa enantiomers as tyrosinase substrates initiating Lâ and Dâmelanogenesis pathways
Tyrosinase starts melanogenesis and determines its course, catalyzing the oxidation by molecular oxygen of tyrosine to dopa, and that of dopa to dopaquinone. Then, nonenzymatic coupling reactions lead to dopachrome, which evolves toward melanin. Recently, it has been reported that dâtyrosine acts as tyrosinase inhibitor and depigmenting agent. The action of tyrosinase on the enantiomers of tyrosine (lâtyrosine and dâtyrosine) and dopa (lâdopa and dâdopa) was studied for the first time focusing on quantitative transient phase kinetics. Postâsteadyâstate transient phase studies revealed that lâdopachrome is formed more rapidly than dâdopachrome. This is due to the lower values of Michaelis constants for lâenantiomers than for dâenantiomers, although the maximum rates are equal for both enantiomers. A deeper analysis of the interâsteadyâstate transient phase of monophenols demonstrated that the enantiomer dâtyrosine causes a longer lag period and a lower steadyâstate rate, than lâtyrosine at the same concentration. Therefore, dâmelanogenesis from dâtyrosine occurs more slowly than does lâmelanogenesis from lâtyrosine, which suggests the apparent inhibition of melanin biosynthesis by dâtyrosine. As conclusion, dâtyrosine acts as a real substrate of tyrosinase, with low catalytic efficiency and, therefore, delays the formation of dâmelanin
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