Yoga Education Program for Reducing Drug Dependency and Promoting Better Asthma Control for Chronic Asthmatic Children: A Multicity Experiment

This article reports a 1-year long yoga education program (YEP) experiment aimed at reducing drug dependency and promoting better asthma control for chronic asthmatic children. Participants were 450 chronic asthmatic children across 4 cities. Two measures were used: Pediatric Asthma Diary (PAD) and Childhood Asthma Control Test (C-ACT). Results indicated that intervention group children had better asthma control in terms of lower average PAD scores and higher C-ACT scores and reduced drug intake vis-à-vis the control group. Within the intervention cohort, asthma symptoms persistence was lower and control was higher for children from Asian cities, boys, Hindus, middle-class children, those whose mothers were their primary caregivers, who lived in standard family setups, who also attended the optional YEP rounds, and regularly self-practiced. The strongest predictor of lower posttest PAD scores and higher C-ACT scores was self-practice. The YEP can be used as an effective complementary treatment for chronic asthmatic children.

Online Machine Scheduling with Family Setups

We consider the problem of online scheduling a single machine with family setups under job availability. A setup must be scheduled when the next job comes from a different family from the last completed one, if any. The aim is to minimize the total completion time of all jobs. For the special case of identical processing times, we provide a lower bound for the competitive ratio and an online algorithm with its competitive analysis.