Establishing engineering S-curves to evaluate supervision engineer allocations for highway construction projects

An engineering consultant firm needs to allocate engineers to supervise a highway construction project in each month during the construction phase. Properly assigning the supervision engineers under a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract has been a key factor affecting the profitability of the firm and the quality assurance of the project. Assigning too many engineers will be a waste, while allocating too few engineers may harm the supervision quality. This work proposes a two-stage model to develop engineering S-curves (called ES-curves) for planning and controlling the engineering super­vision schedule. In the planning stage, a predictive ES-curve model is established based on historical ES-curves. In the controlling stage, an ES-curve is built according to the relationships between the engineering progress and construction progress. A cluster analysis and regression analysis are applied to the model development. A case study demonstrates that the produced ES-curves can help management in planning and evaluating when to increase or decrease the number of supervision engineers assigned to a project

Evolutionary dynamic optimisation of airport security lane schedules

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Reducing costs whilst maintaining passenger satisfaction is an important problem for airports. One area this can be applied is the security lane checks at the airport. However, reducing costs through reducing lane openings typically increases queue length and hence passenger dissatisfaction. This paper demonstrates that evolutionary methods can be used to optimise airport security lane schedules such that passenger dissatisfaction and staffing costs can be minimised. However, it is shown that these schedules typically over-fit the forecasts of passenger arrivals at security such that in actuality significant passenger delays can occur with deviations from the forecast. Consequently, this paper further demonstrates that dynamic evolutionary re-optimisation of these schedules can significantly mitigate this over-fitting problem with much reduced passenger delays

Robustness and evolutionary dynamic optimisation of airport security schedules

Reducing security lane operations whilst minimising passenger waiting times in unforseen circumstances is important for airports. Evolutionary methods can design optimised schedules but these tend to over-fit passenger arrival forecasts resulting in lengthy waiting times for unforeseen events. Dynamic re-optimisation can mitigate for this issue but security lane schedules are an example of a constrained problem due to the human element preventing major modifications. This paper postulates that for dynamic re-optimisation to be more effective in constrained circumstances consideration of schedule robustness is required. To reduce over-fitting a simple methodology for evolving more robust schedules is investigated. Random delays are introduced into forecasts of passenger arrivals to better reflect actuality and a range of these randomly perturbed forecasts are used to evaluate schedules. These steps reduced passenger waiting times for actual events for both static and dynamic policies with minimal increases in security operations

Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides can induce human monocytic leukemia cells into dendritic cells with immuno-stimulatory function

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies demonstrated <it>Ganoderma lucidum </it>polysaccharides (GL-PS), a form of bioactive β-glucan can stimulate the maturation of monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DC). The question of how leukemic cells especially in monocytic lineage respond to GL-PS stimuli remains unclear.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we used <it>in vitro</it> culture model with leukemic monocytic cell-lines THP-1 and U937 as monocytic effectors cells for proliferation responses and DCs induction. We treated the THP-1 and U937 cells with purified GL-PS (100 μg/mL) or GL-PS with GM-CSF/IL-4. GL-PS alone induced proliferative response on both THP-1 and U937 cells but only THP-1 transformed into typical DC morphology when stimulated with GL-PS plus GM-CSF/IL-4. The transformed THP-1 DCs had significant increase expression of HLA-DR, CD40, CD80 and CD86 though not as high as the extent of normal monocyte-derived DCs. They had similar antigen-uptake ability as the normal monocyte-derived DCs positive control. However, their potency in inducing allogeneic T cell proliferation was also less than that of normal monocyte-derived DCs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggested that GL-PS could induce selected monocytic leukemic cell differentiation into DCs with immuno-stimulatory function. The possible clinical impact of using this commonly used medicinal mushroom in patients with monocytic leukemia (AML-M4 and M5) deserved further investigation.</p

The Infection of Chicken Tracheal Epithelial Cells with a H6N1 Avian Influenza Virus

Sialic acids (SAs) linked to galactose (Gal) in α2,3- and α2,6-configurations are the receptors for avian and human influenza viruses, respectively. We demonstrate that chicken tracheal ciliated cells express α2,3-linked SA, while goblet cells mainly express α2,6-linked SA. In addition, the plant lectin MAL-II, but not MAA/MAL-I, is bound to the surface of goblet cells, suggesting that SA2,3-linked oligosaccharides with Galβ1–3GalNAc subterminal residues are specifically present on the goblet cells. Moreover, both α2,3- and α2,6-linked SAs are detected on single tracheal basal cells. At a low multiplicity of infection (MOI) avian influenza virus H6N1 is exclusively detected in the ciliated cells, suggesting that the ciliated cell is the major target cell of the H6N1 virus. At a MOI of 1, ciliated, goblet and basal cells are all permissive to the AIV infection. This result clearly elucidates the receptor distribution for the avian influenza virus among chicken tracheal epithelial cells and illustrates a primary cell model for evaluating the cell tropisms of respiratory viruses in poultry

Management of giant pseudomeningoceles after spinal surgery

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pseudomeningoceles are a rare complication after spinal surgery, and studies on these complex formations are few.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between October 2000 and March 2008, 11 patients who developed symptomatic pseudomeningoceles after spinal surgery were recruited. In this retrospective study, we reported our experiences in the management of these complex, symptomatic pseudomeningoceles after spinal surgery. A giant pseudomeningocele was defined as a pseudomeningocele >8 cm in length. We also evaluated the risk factors for the formation of giant pseudomeningoceles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>All patients were treated successfully with a combined treatment protocol of open revision surgery for extirpation of the pseudomeningoceles, repair of dural tears, and implantation of a subarachnoid catheter for drainage. Surgery-related complications were not observed. Recurrence of pseudomeningocele was not observed for any patient at a mean follow-up of 16.5 months. This result was confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that a combined treatment protocol involving open revision surgery for extirpation of pseudomeningoceles, repair of dural tears, and implantation of a subarachnoid catheter for drainage is safe and effective to treat giant pseudomeningoceles.</p

Studying the Underlying Event in Drell-Yan and High Transverse Momentum Jet Production at the Tevatron

We study the underlying event in proton-antiproton collisions by examining the behavior of charged particles (transverse momentum pT > 0.5 GeV/c, pseudorapidity |\eta| < 1) produced in association with large transverse momentum jets (~2.2 fb-1) or with Drell-Yan lepton-pairs (~2.7 fb-1) in the Z-boson mass region (70 < M(pair) < 110 GeV/c2) as measured by CDF at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy. We use the direction of the lepton-pair (in Drell-Yan production) or the leading jet (in high-pT jet production) in each event to define three regions of \eta-\phi space; toward, away, and transverse, where \phi is the azimuthal scattering angle. For Drell-Yan production (excluding the leptons) both the toward and transverse regions are very sensitive to the underlying event. In high-pT jet production the transverse region is very sensitive to the underlying event and is separated into a MAX and MIN transverse region, which helps separate the hard component (initial and final-state radiation) from the beam-beam remnant and multiple parton interaction components of the scattering. The data are corrected to the particle level to remove detector effects and are then compared with several QCD Monte-Carlo models. The goal of this analysis is to provide data that can be used to test and improve the QCD Monte-Carlo models of the underlying event that are used to simulate hadron-hadron collisions.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.

Measurement of the Dipion Mass Spectrum in X(3872) -> J/Psi Pi+ Pi- Decays

We measure the dipion mass spectrum in X(3872)--> J/Psi Pi+ Pi- decays using 360 pb-1 of pbar-p collisions at 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector. The spectrum is fit with predictions for odd C-parity (3S1, 1P1, and 3DJ) charmonia decaying to J/Psi Pi+ Pi-, as well as even C-parity states in which the pions are from Rho0 decay. The latter case also encompasses exotic interpretations, such as a D0-D*0Bar molecule. Only the 3S1 and J/Psi Rho hypotheses are compatible with our data. Since 3S1 is untenable on other grounds, decay via J/Psi Rho is favored, which implies C=+1 for the X(3872). Models for different J/Psi-Rho angular momenta L are considered. Flexibility in the models, especially the introduction of Rho-Omega interference, enable good descriptions of our data for both L=0 and 1.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures -- Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Precision measurement of the top quark mass from dilepton events at CDF II

We report a measurement of the top quark mass, M_t, in the dilepton decay channel of $t\bar{t}\to b\ell'^{+}\nu_{\ell'}\bar{b}\ell^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\ell}$ using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of p\bar{p} collisions collected with the CDF II detector. We apply a method that convolutes a leading-order matrix element with detector resolution functions to form event-by-event likelihoods; we have enhanced the leading-order description to describe the effects of initial-state radiation. The joint likelihood is the product of the likelihoods from 78 candidate events in this sample, which yields a measurement of M_{t} = 164.5 \pm 3.9(\textrm{stat.}) \pm 3.9(\textrm{syst.}) \mathrm{GeV}/c^2, the most precise measurement of M_t in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, version includes changes made prior to publication by journa

Cross Section Measurements of High-pTp_T Dilepton Final-State Processes Using a Global Fitting Method

We present a new method for studying high-$p_T$ dilepton events ($e^{\pm}e^{\mp}$, $\mu^{\pm}\mu^{\mp}$, $e^{\pm}\mu^{\mp}$) and simultaneously extracting the production cross sections of $p\bar{p} \to t\bar{t}$, $p\bar{p} \to W^+W^-$, and p\bar{p} \to \ztt at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 1.96$ TeV. We perform a likelihood fit to the dilepton data in a parameter space defined by the missing transverse energy and the number of jets in the event. Our results, which use $360 {\rm pb^{-1}}$ of data recorded with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, are $\sigma(t\bar{t}) = 8.5_{-2.2}^{+2.7}$ pb, $\sigma(W^+W^-) = 16.3^{+5.2}_{-4.4}$ pb, and \sigma(\ztt) =291^{+50}_{-46} pb.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, to be submitted to PRD-R