Route activity tracking and management using available technology

Small organizations that maintain their own fleet and make their own deliveries are responsible for ensuring their drivers are utilizing the most efficient routes while delivering products to their customers. Furthermore, efficient delivery requires that drivers spend as little time as possible dropping off and picking up products, since these activities are referred to as “non-value added activities,� although they are necessary tasks in the order cycle process. To aid in reducing order cycle times, large organizations that can afford it have employed transportation management systems. Unfortunately, small organizations with limited resources are less likely to adopt transportation management systems, despite the need for such automation. One solution is to use available productivity software to track and manage driver route activity in an effort to improve and maintain driver productivity by reducing non-value time and identifying optimal routes. This paper will outline how office productivity software such as Microsoft® Access can meet the needs of small organizations with limited resources by describing the development and use of a route activity database that employs an easy-to-use multi-user interface. This paper also includes the details of the underlying infrastructure and the user interface

The Occurrence and Control of Disinfection By-Products (DBPs) in Two Water Treatment Plants Utilizing the Same Source

The influence of disinfection by-products (DBPs) on the operation and design of water treatment plants has been increasing since the early studies by Rook on trihalomethanes (THMs) (Stevens, 1977). Work conducted in the 1980s identified the existence of nonvolatile halogenated organics (non-THM organics), of which the majority produced by chlorination were haloacetic acids (HAAs), within the HAAs, dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) and trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) were the dominant members. Concern over potential health effect led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to set a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for total THMs and HAAs. The disinfectant/disinfection by-product rule (D-DBP Rule) currently proposed by the USEPA will lower the MCL for THMs and HAAs. Past and pending DBP regulations have provided a momentum to seek a better understanding of how these compounds are formed as well as how their production can be controlled. Drinking water utilities are preparing for these major changes. An investigation was conducted to examine disinfection options that would ensure minimization of DBP formation and conform to disinfectant-disinfection by-product regulations. Primary issues were the types of disinfectants applied (chlorine, chlorine dioxide, chloramines and/or ozone). The study was conducted at two public drinking water treatment plants that derive their water from one source; the Delaware River. Each plant was associated with a different chemical environment that affected DBP formation. The effects of implementing different disinfection options on DBP formation were evaluated at pilot plants for various water conditions. Analyses were conducted for disinfectant residuals, organic by-products (trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids). Promising DBP elimination strategies were also investigated utilizing the pilot treatment facilities. Results have shown that DBP control was accomplished by the focus on removal of the precursors through granular activated carbon (GAC), reverse osmosis and coagulation. After the DBPs had formed it was possible to remove them by subsequent GAC and coagulation treatment

Faculty perceptions of the integration of SAP in academic programs

In order to prepare students for the workforce, academic programs incorporate a variety of tools that students are likely to use in their future careers. One of these tools employed by business and technology programs is the integration of live software applications such as SAP through the SAP University Alliance (SAP UA) program. Since the SAP UA program has been around for only about 10 years and the available literature on the topic is limited, research is needed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the SAP UA program. A collaborative study of SAP UA faculty perceptions of their SAP UAs was conducted in the fall of 2011. Of the faculty invited to participate in the study, 31% completed the online survey. The results indicate that most faculty experienced difficulty implementing SAP into their programs and report that a need exists for more standardized curriculum and training, while a large percentage indicated that they are receiving the support they need from their schools and SAP

ERP / LOGISTICS TRAINING USING COMPUTER BASED TRAINING TOOLS: A VIRTUALIZATION MODEL FOR SAP

Logistics organizations’ training programs face many challenges. These challenges, such as cost and consistency in training, are magnified if the organization is geographically dispersed and a training program must be implemented globally. To address these issues, a training model was developed and tested in a classroom environment during spring 2013 in three sections of a university logistics course. Delivered via both a traditional and a distance learning format, the training model used VMware View® clients configured to run the popular SAP® Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and SAP’s Datango® software. Testing revealed that students were able to grasp the skills necessary to use the training model with very little direction from the instructor. There were no differences in difficulties noted during the semester between traditional and distance education students. The model’s initial success suggests the potential for ease in adaptation in geographically dispersed logistics environments

Bayesian Reasoning in Eternal Inflation: A Solution to the Measure Problem

Probabilities in eternal inflation are traditionally defined as limiting frequency distributions, but a unique and unambiguous probability measure remains elusive. In this paper, we present a different approach, based on Bayesian reasoning. Our starting point is the master equation governing vacuum dynamics, which describes a random walk on the network of vacua. Our probabilities require two pieces of prior information, both pertaining to initial conditions: a prior density $\rho(t)$ for the time of nucleation, and a prior probability $p_\alpha$ for the ancestral vacuum. For ancestral vacua, we advocate the uniform prior as a conservative choice, though our conclusions are fairly insensitive to this choice. For the time of nucleation, we argue that a uniform prior is consistent with the time-translational invariance of the master equation and represents the minimally-informative choice. The resulting predictive probabilities coincide with Bousso's "holographic" prior probabilities and are closely related to Garriga and Vilenkin's "comoving" probabilities. Despite making the least informative priors, these probabilities are surprisingly predictive. They favor vacua whose surrounding landscape topography is that of a deep funnel, akin to the folding funnels of naturally-occurring proteins. They predict that we exist during the approach to near-equilibrium, much earlier than the mixing time for the landscape. We also consider a volume-weighted $\rho(t)$, which amounts to weighing vacua by physical volume. The predictive probabilities in this case coincide with the GSVW measure. The Bayesian framework allows us to compare the plausibility of the uniform-time and volume-weighted hypotheses to explain our data by computing the Bayesian evidence for each. We argue, under general and plausible assumptions, that posterior odds overwhelmingly favor the uniform-time hypothesis.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figur

Virtual Maintenance, Reality, and Systems: A Review

Virtual Reality is a computer-generated, mock environment that can allow people to interact with it in a seemingly real way by using certain types of specialized equipment. It is mainly used for training or educational purposes and allows for “real-life” training in a safe and monitored environment. Virtual training can be used in many different fields such as medical, military, biomedical research, aviation, and many others. However, this paper reviews the most cited publications related to the application of virtual reality for training in the United States Military. As a result, researchers can find research venues based on the challenges, risk, and infrastructures

Early-Time Measure in Eternal Inflation

In a situation like eternal inflation, where our data is replicated at infinitely-many other space-time events, it is necessary to make a prior assumption about our location to extract predictions. The principle of mediocrity entails that we live at asymptotic late times, when the occupational probabilities of vacua has settled to a near-equilibrium distribution. In this paper we further develop the idea that we instead exist during the approach to equilibrium, much earlier than the exponentially-long mixing time. In this case we are most likely to reside in vacua that are easily accessed dynamically. Using first-passage statistics, we prove that vacua that maximize their space-time volume at early times have: 1. maximal ever-hitting probability; 2. minimal mean first-passage time; and 3. minimal decay rate. These requirements are succinctly captured by an early-time measure. The idea that we live at early times is a predictive guiding principle, with many phenomenological implications. First, our vacuum should lie deep in a funneled region, akin to folding energy landscapes of proteins. Second, optimal landscape regions are characterized by relatively short-lived vacua, with lifetime of order the de Sitter Page time. For our vacuum, this lifetime is $\sim 10^{130}$~years, which is consistent with the Standard Model estimate due to Higgs metastability. Third, the measure favors vacua with small, positive vacuum energy. This can address the cosmological constant problem, provided there are sufficiently many vacua in the entire ensemble of funnels. As a concrete example, we study the Bousso-Polchinski lattice of flux vacua, and find that the early-time measure favors lattices with the fewest number of flux dimensions. This favors compactifications with a large hierarchy between the lightest modulus and all other K\"ahler and complex structure moduli.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figure

Implications of the Weak Gravity Conjecture for Tidal Love Numbers of Black Holes

The Weak Gravity Conjecture indicates that extremal black holes in the low energy effective field theory should be able to decay. This criterion gives rise to non-trivial constraints on the coefficients of higher-order derivative corrections to gravity. In this paper, we investigate the tidal deformability of neutral black holes due to higher-order derivative corrections. As a proof of concept, we consider a correction of cubic order in the Riemann curvature tensor. The tidal Love numbers of neutral black holes receive leading-order corrections from higher-order derivative terms, since black holes in pure General Relativity have vanishing tidal Love number. We conclude that the interplay between the tidal deformability of black holes and the Weak Gravity Conjecture provides useful information about the effective field theory.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures. v2: matching published versio

Non-linearities in the tidal Love numbers of black holes

Tidal Love numbers describe the linear response of a compact object under the presence of external tidal perturbations, and they are found to vanish exactly for black holes within General Relativity. In this paper we investigate the tidal deformability of neutral black holes when non-linearities in the theory are taken into account. As a case in point, we consider scalar tidal perturbations on the black hole background, and find that the tidal Love numbers may be non vanishing depending on the scalar interactions in the bulk theory. Remarkably, for non-linear sigma models, we find that the tidal Love numbers vanish to all orders in perturbation theory.Comment: 30 pages. v2: matching version published in PR