Optimising the Preventive Maintenance Interval Using a Semi-Markov Process, Z-Transform, and Finite Planning Horizon

This chapter uses a semi-Markov process and the z transform to find the optimal preventive maintenance interval when dealing with maintenance decision making for a finite time planning horizon. The result is a method that can be easily implemented to assets for which a Weibull reliability analysis exists. The suggested preventive interval formulation is simple and practical. The requirements to apply this simple formula are related to the existence of asset´s reliability data as well as cost/rewards that the assets have when remaining or transitioning to a given state. The application of this method can be very straightforward, and the tool can become a good decision support tool allowing “what if” analysis for different time horizon and maintenance policies.

Green road–rail intermodal routing problem with improved pickup and delivery services integrating truck departure time planning under uncertainty: an interactive fuzzy programming approach

This paper addresses the multi-objective optimization for the road–rail intermodal routing problem that aims to minimize the total costs and carbon dioxide emissions of the routes. To achieve high timeliness of the entire transportation process, pickup and delivery services are simultaneously improved based on the employment of fuzzy soft time windows to measure their service levels. The modeling of road–rail intermodal routing considers fixed schedules of rail and time flexibility of road to match the real-world transportation scenario, in which travel times and carbon dioxide emission factors of road services are considered to be time-varying. To improve the feasibility of the routing, uncertainty of travel times and carbon dioxide emission factors of road services and capacities of rail services are incorporated into the problem. By applying trapezoidal fuzzy numbers to formulate the uncertainty, we propose a fuzzy multi-objective nonlinear optimization model for the routing problem that integrates the truck departure time planning for road services. After processing the model with fuzzy chance-constrained programming and linearization, we obtain an auxiliary equivalent crisp linear model and solve it by designing an interactive fuzzy programming approach with the Bounded Objective Function method. Based on an empirical case study, we demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach and discuss the effects of improving the confidence levels and service levels on the optimization results. The case analysis reveals several managerial insights that help to realize an efficient transportation organization by making effective trade-offs among lowering costs, reducing emissions, improving service levels, and enhancing feasibility.

DESIGN OF THE TOURIST INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE CITY APPLICATION. PROBLEMS OF LEISURE PLANNING

The article considers the current problem of tourism development in Ukraine and in a particular city Kharkiv. This problem is especially relevant today, due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. Nowadays, in order to correct the situation in this sector of the economy, it is advisable to use specialized information support. There are many different resources on the Internet, with which one can get help or mark out a route, depending on the selected points of interest. Some of them specialize in working with the map, in particular in marking out routes, finding and displaying places of tourist infrastructure on the map. Others display information about events taking place in these places without cartographic reference. But each of these resources has only a part of the needs of a tourist or resident who wants to plan their leisure time. The proposed application will fill all the flaws of existing resources. It will meet the needs of navigation, information and planning functions. In other words this application will be the first application that combines the functions of finding and providing information about places of tourist attraction, marking out routes between them and creating an optimal plan for visiting them. The geographic information system ArcGIS was chosen to solve this problem. It contains the necessary modules for working with vectorized maps, layers and provides programming. An intuitive application interface was created using VBA. It contains the necessary forms for routing between points of interest and time planning. The article demonstrated the capabilities of geographic information systems in tourism business sphere It demonstrated a solution that allows with maximum convenience and minimum time not only to obtain the necessary information, but also to plan their leisure. It will help even during lockdowns and other anti-epidemic measures to prevent decline of tourist infrastructure.

Does Prewriting Planning Positively Impact English L2 Students’ Integrated Writing Performance?

This study compared English L2 writers’ (N = 111) performance on an integrated writing task from the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment under three prewriting planning conditions: required self-timed planning required fixed time planning, and suggested (i.e., optional) planning. The participants’ integrated essays were scored according to the CAEL writing bands by raters at Paragon Testing Inc. The effect of planning condition on the participants' planning time, writing time, and integrated writing scores were analyzed using MANOVA. The student interviews were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The results indicated that planning time was the only variable impacted by planning condition, with students in the required self-timed planning condition taking more time to plan before beginning to write. Students’ perceptions about prewriting planning are discussed in terms of implications for the teaching and assessment of L2 integrated writing.

Cognitive constraints on advance planning of sentence intonation

Pitch peaks tend to be higher at the beginning of longer than shorter sentences (e.g., ‘A farmer is pulling donkeys’ vs ‘A farmer is pulling a donkey and goat’), whereas pitch valleys at the ends of sentences are rather constant for a given speaker. These data seem to imply that speakers avoid dropping their voice pitch too low by planning the height of sentence-initial pitch peaks prior to speaking. However, the length effect on sentence-initial pitch peaks appears to vary across different types of sentences, speakers and languages. Therefore, the notion that speakers plan sentence intonation in advance due to the limitations in low voice pitch leaves part of the data unexplained. Consequently, this study suggests a complementary cognitive account of length-dependent pitch scaling. In particular, it proposes that the sentence-initial pitch raise in long sentences is related to high demands on mental resources during the early stages of sentence planning. To tap into the cognitive underpinnings of planning sentence intonation, this study adopts the methodology of recording eye movements during a picture description task, as the eye movements are the established approximation of the real-time planning processes. Measures of voice pitch (Fundamental Frequency) and incrementality (eye movements) are used to examine the relationship between (verbal) working memory (WM), incrementality of sentence planning and the height of sentence-initial pitch peaks.

Reconciling agility and architecture: a theory of agile architecture

<p>The purpose of agile software development is to enable the software development team to respond to change and learn from change so that it can better deliver value to its customer. If an agile software development team spends too much time planning and designing architecture up-front then the delivery of value to the customer is delayed or otherwise compromised, and responding to change can become extremely difficult. Not doing enough architecture design increases exposure to risk and increases the chance of failure. The balance between architecture and agility is not well understood by agile practitioners or researchers. This thesis is based on grounded theory research involving 44 participants from 36 organisations, all working in agile software development and who are either experienced in architecture design or are closely involved with architecture. The thesis presents a theory that describes how agile software teams design an agile architecture with reduced up-front design and which is able to respond to change, helping teams find a balance between architecture and agility. The theory describes six forces that affect the agility of the architecture and up-front design, and five strategies that teams use in response to those forces to determine how much effort they put into up-front design. Understanding these forces and strategies helps agile teams to determine how much up-front design is appropriate in their contexts.</p>

Reconciling agility and architecture: a theory of agile architecture

<p>The purpose of agile software development is to enable the software development team to respond to change and learn from change so that it can better deliver value to its customer. If an agile software development team spends too much time planning and designing architecture up-front then the delivery of value to the customer is delayed or otherwise compromised, and responding to change can become extremely difficult. Not doing enough architecture design increases exposure to risk and increases the chance of failure. The balance between architecture and agility is not well understood by agile practitioners or researchers. This thesis is based on grounded theory research involving 44 participants from 36 organisations, all working in agile software development and who are either experienced in architecture design or are closely involved with architecture. The thesis presents a theory that describes how agile software teams design an agile architecture with reduced up-front design and which is able to respond to change, helping teams find a balance between architecture and agility. The theory describes six forces that affect the agility of the architecture and up-front design, and five strategies that teams use in response to those forces to determine how much effort they put into up-front design. Understanding these forces and strategies helps agile teams to determine how much up-front design is appropriate in their contexts.</p>

The role of pension knowledge in voluntary pension and banking savings in Chile

PurposeIn an era of increasing financial vulnerability, people are not saving enough to either fund their future pension benefits or having precautionary savings. The authors propose that pension knowledge makes people increase their probability of having voluntary pension and banking savings.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use the social protection survey in Chile, a unique set of panel data for affiliates in 2006 and 2009. First, the authors use clustering algorithms to find naturally occurring groupings in the level of pension knowledge. Second, the authors run a probit regression model for explaining the probability of having a voluntary pension and banking savings, using as determinants the level of pension knowledge and several control variables that are usually explored in the literature.FindingsThe authors find two clusters of pension knowledge in the Chilean pension system. In addition, the authors find that there is a positive correlation between high pension knowledge and good financial decision-making, as these people have voluntary retirement and banking savings.Practical implicationsAs people who spend time planning accumulate more wealth, it is important to develop public policies that promote the advantages to know better about the benefits of having voluntary savings for the long-term horizon. Conscientious people are also more likely to have voluntary savings.Social implicationsPolicy programs to increase to be responsible can have positive effects on society's welfare.Originality/valueUp to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that connects clustering algorithms and pension knowledge.