Bounded dynamic programming approach to minimize makespan in the blocking flowshop problem with sequence dependent setup times

This paper aims at presenting an algorithm for solving the blocking flow shop problem with sequence dependent setup times (BFSP-SDST) with minimization of the makespan. In order to do so, we propose an adapted Bounded Dynamic Programming (BDP-SN) algorithm as solution method, since the problem itself does not present a significant number of sources in the state-of-art references and also because Dynamic Programming and its variants have been resurfacing in the flowshop literature. Therefore, we apply the modified method to two sets of problems and compare the results computationally and statistically for instances with a MILP and a B&B method for at most 20 jobs and 20 machines. The results show that BDP-SN is promising and outperforms both MILP and B&B within the established time limit. In addition, some suggestions are made in order to improve the method and employ it in parallel research regarding other branches of machine scheduling

Performance of IAC 300 rubber clones in the plateau of São Paulo State, Brazil

O objetivo deste trabalho foi selecionar clones de seringueira (Hevea spp.) promissores para a região do planalto do Estado de São Paulo. De uma população de 70 clones, de polinização controlada, integrantes do experimento de avaliação em pequena escala, foram avaliados 16 da série IAC 300. O experimento foi instalado na Estação Experimental de Pindorama, no espaçamento de 7 x 3 m, em delineamento de blocos casualizados, com três repetições, tendo os clones RRIM 600 e GT 1 como testemunhas. Quanto à produção de borracha seca, destacaram-se oito e dez clones superiores ao RRIM 600 e GT 1, respectivamente. Todos os clones avaliados apresentaram-se vigorosos em relação ao perímetro do caule na abertura do painel. Sete deles mostraram alta resistência; sete, resistência moderada, e dois, suscetíveis à antracnose do painel. Sugere-se sua avaliação em experimentos de grande escala, para avaliar, além da produção, os demais caracteres secundários, em diferentes ambientes, para futuras recomendações em larga escala para o Estado de São Paulo.The present paper shows the results of the selection of IAC 300 serial promising clones of rubber tree (Hevea spp.) for the plateau region of São Paulo State, Brazil. Eighteen clones were selected from a population of 70 clones resulted of controlled pollination, all evaluated in a small scale trial. The trial was laid out in randomized block design with three replications following the 7.0 m x 3.0 m spacing at the Experimental Station of Pindorama. The clones RRIM 600 and GT 1 were used as control. Regarding to yield, eight and ten clones showed superiority to RRIM 600 and GT 1, respectively. All the selected clones showed to be vigorous regarding to the girth by the panel opening. Seven clones showed high resistance, seven with moderate resistance, and two were susceptible to the anthracnose panel canker. A complementary evaluation in large scale trials is to evaluate, besides yielding, other secondary characters, with the purpose of future recommendations in large scale for São Paulo State

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Trajetórias da Educomunicação nas Políticas Públicas e a Formação de seus Profissionais

Esta obra é composta com os trabalhos apresentados no primeiro subtema, TRAJETÓRIA – Educação para a Comunicação como Política pública, nas perspectivas da Educomunicação e da Mídia-Educação, do II Congresso Internacional de Comunicação e Educação. Os artigos pretendem propiciar trocas de informações e produzir reflexões com os leitores sobre os caminhos percorridos, e ainda a percorrer, tendo como meta a expansão e a legitimação das práticas educomunicativas e/ou mídia-educativas como política pública para o atendimento à formação de crianças, adolescentes, jovens e adultos, no Brasil e no mundo

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Análise de Bounded Dynamic Programming com minimização do Makespan para o problema de Flow Shop com bloqueio e restrições de tempos de setup dependentes da sequência

Throughout the decades, the flow shop scheduling problem has appeared in a variety of manufacturing scenarios and, as a consequence of that fact, several branches of it have taken place and are frequently studied by researchers so as to develop efficient methods to solve these problems that stem from the classic version. A problem that is frequently found on the shop floor is the blocking flow shop with sequence dependent setup times (BFSP-SDST) with makespan optimization, which can be found on electronics, metallurgy, chemical and food industries and it comes to show the importance of improving systems that can be modelled via this problem. However, when gathering information on stateof- art references, one will notice that little has been made regarding BFSP-SDST and, consequently, only few methods have been applied with the intent of optimizing makespan. Furthermore, research has shown that dynamic programming is a method that has not been given much attention with regard to the flow shop environment and therefore, its contribution has become, thus far, limited. Hence, this research aims at applying Bounded Dynamic Programming (BDP), which is a DP-based method, to solve the BFSP-SDST so as to enlarge the number of methods that are related to such problem. The BDP is employed in two sets of problems and for the first set, it is compared to a MILP and B&B methods, while the comparison occurs only between the BDP and MILP for the second set. The results have shown that BDP outperforms the MILP in both scenarios and the B&B in terms of CPU times and success rate. In addition, a trade-off analysis is provided in order to determine which method is a better choice for the scheduler in terms of solution quality and CPU times and, once again, BDP proves to be better for the job and machine sets considered. Sequentially, some suggestions are furnished to improve the method and develop further research considering this approach.Ao longo das décadas, o problema de sequenciamento em ambiente flow shop tem aparecido em uma variedade de cenários de manufatura e, como consequência, diversas ramificações se estabeleceram, sendo frequentemente estudadas por pesquisadores com o intuito de desenvolver métodos eficientes para resolver esses problemas originados da versão clássica do flow shop. Um problema comumente encontrado no chão de fábrica é o flow shop com bloqueio e tempos de setup dependentes da sequência (BFSP-SDST) com minimização do makespan, que pode ser encontrado em indústrias de eletrônicos, metalúrgicas, química e de alimentos e portanto, demonstra a importância de aperfeiçoar sistemas que possam ser modelados através do mesmo. Todavia, ao organizar informações de referências que são estado-da-arte, pode-se notar poucas referências acerca do BFSP-SDST e, por consequência, apenas poucos métodos foram aplicados com o intuito de minimizar o makespan para tal problema. Além do mais, as pesquisas mostraram que a programação dinâmica não tem recebido devida atenção quando se trata do ambiente flow shop e portanto, sua contribuição se tornou limitada, até o momento. Logo, essa pesquisa tem como objetivo aplicar Bounded Dynamic Programming (BDP), que é um método baseado em programação dinâmica, como solução para o BFSP-SDST para aumentar o número de métodos de solução para tal problema. O BDP é empregado em dois conjuntos de instâncias e, para o primeiro conjunto, o mesmo é comparado com os métodos MILP e B&B, enquanto a comparação ocorre apenas entre BDP e MILP para o segundo conjunto. Os resultados mostraram que BDP supera o MILP em ambos os cenários e o B&B em termos de eficiência computacional e qualidade de solução através da taxa de acerto do algoritmo. Adicionalmente, uma análise de trade-off é fornecida para se determinar qual método representa uma melhor escolha para o programador em termos de qualidade da solução e esforço computacional e, mais uma vez, BDP se mostra uma escolha melhor para os conjuntos de tarefas e máquinas considerados. Sequencialmente, algumas sugestões são fornecidas para refinar o método e e desenvolver futuras pesquisas considerando essa abordagem