Appointment scheduling at a multidisciplinary outpatient clinic using stochastic programming

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of constructing an appointment template for scheduling patients at a specific type of multidisciplinary outpatient clinic called an integrated practice unit (IPU). The focus is on developing and solving a stochastic optimization model for a back pain IPU in the face of random arrivals, an uncertain patient mix, and variable service times. The deterministic version of the problem is modeled as a mixed integer program with the objective of minimizing a weighted combination of clinic closing time (duration) and total patient waiting time (length of stay). A two‐stage stochastic program is then derived to account for the randomness and the sequential nature of the decisions. Although it was not possible to solve the two‐stage problem for even a limited number of scenarios, the wait‐and‐see (WS) problem was sufficiently tractable to provide a lower bound on the stochastic solution. The introduction of valid inequalities, limiting indices, and the use of special ordered sets helped to speed up the computations. A greedy heuristic was also developed to obtain solutions much more quickly. Out of practical considerations, it was necessary to develop appointment templates with time slots at fixed intervals, which are not available from the WS solution. The first to be derived was the expected value (EV) template that is used to find the expected value of the EV solution (EEV). This solution provides an upper bound on the objective function value of the two‐stage stochastic program. The average gap between the EEV and WS solutions was 18%. Results from extensive computational testing are presented for the EV template and for our adaptation of three other templates found in the literature. Depending on the relative importance of the two objective function metrics, the results demonstrate the trade‐off that exists between them. For the templates investigated, the “closing time” ranged from an average of 235 to 275 minutes for a 300‐minute session, while the corresponding “total patient time in clinic” ranged from 80 to 71 minutes.     

A novel launch dynamics measurement system for multiple launch rocket system and comparative analysis with numerical simulations

In this paper,a novel launch dynamics measurement system based on the photoelectric sensor pair is built.The actual muzzle time(i.e.a time duration that originates from the initial movement to the rocket's departure from the muzzle)and the muzzle velocity are measured.Compared with the classical methods,the actual muzzle time is obtained by eliminating the ignition delay.The comparative analysis method is proposed with numerical simulations established by the transfer matrix method for multibody systems.The experiment results indicate that the proposed measurement system can effectively measure the actual muzzle time and reduce the error of classical methods,which match well with the simulation results showing the launch dynamics model is reliable and helpful for further analysis and design of the MLRS.     

Disruption management in production planning

We study the problem of recovering a production plan after a disruption, where the disruption may be caused by incidents such as power failure, market change, machine breakdown, supply shortage, worker no‐show, and others. The new recovery plan we seek after has to not only suit the changed environment brought about by the disruption, but also be close to the initial plan so as not to cause too much customer unsatisfaction or inconvenience for current‐stage and downstream operations. For the general‐cost case, we propose a dynamic programming method for the problem. For the convex‐cost case, a general problem which involves both cost and demand disruptions can be solved by considering the cost disruption first and then the demand disruption. We find that a pure demand disruption is easy to handle; and for a pure cost disruption, we propose a greedy method which is provably efficient. Our computational studies also reveal insights that will be helpful to managing disruptions in production planning. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

基于引擎成员的仿真调度问题

仿真引擎作为仿真系统的核心,是HLA仿真联邦中的特殊联邦成员。论述了基于实体、成员和引擎的层次式仿真调度概念结构,及其采用的基于时间序和事件序的仿真调度方案,将作战实体的时间推进和交战处理都归入仿真引擎,确保了全局时间统一性、实体同步性和交战事件的有序性,而且各种参量的设置灵活,便于控制。介绍了仿真引擎成员的设计与实现。该引擎成员在某指挥自动化作战效能仿真与评估系统中得以应用。     

高性能路由器中的分组非精确调度技术

随着网络带宽的不断提高,分组到达路由器的时间间隔不断缩短,对路由器处理分组的速度提出了新的要求。传统的分组调度算法,如WFQ,由于性能和可扩展性等问题,难以在高性能核心路由器中实现。为此,提出了分组非精确调度技术,在不影响应用QoS的前提下对经典的调度算法进行修改,通过简化硬件设计提高调度器的服务能力。模拟分析表明,采用非精确调度技术的SLQF算法的延时特性与传统算法LQF基本一致。     

基于调制/解调的动态响应测试方法

在磁悬浮列车中,悬浮控制系统要求间隙传感器的动态特性,但无法用机械方法测试较高频率时的动态特性。根据传感器工作机制,用模拟涡流场来代替被测导体的涡流效应,提出基于调制/解调原理的动态特性测试方法,并分别对正弦信号和方波信号的测试方法进行了探讨。最后给出了两种特征信号的传感器动态特性测试结果。实验表明,这种方法能够满足测试要求,相对于机械方法有很大的优越性。     

Transshipment through crossdocks with inventory and time windows

A major challenge in making supply meet demand is to coordinate transshipments across the supply chain to reduce costs and increase service levels in the face of demand fluctuations, short lead times, warehouse limitations, and transportation and inventory costs. In particular, transshipment through crossdocks, where just‐in‐time objectives prevail, requires precise scheduling between suppliers, crossdocks, and customers. In this work, we study the transshipment problem with supplier and customer time windows where flow is constrained by transportation schedules and warehouse capacities. Transportation is provided by fixed or flexible schedules and lot‐sizing is dealt with through multiple shipments. We develop polynomial‐time algorithms or, otherwise, provide the complexity of the problems studied. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005     

On the asymptotic optimality of algorithms for the flow shop problem with release dates

We consider the nonpermutation flow shop problem with release dates, with the objective of minimizing the sum of the weighted completion times on the final machine. Since the problem is NP‐hard, we focus on the analysis of the performance of several approximation algorithms, all of which are related to the classical Weighted Shortest Processing Time Among Available Jobs heuristic. In particular, we perform a probabilistic analysis and prove that two online heuristics and one offline heuristic are asymptotically optimal. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

光纤光栅压力传感器封装增敏技术

介绍了封装对光纤光栅纤内谐振腔的光学特性的影响、基于压力增敏的光纤光栅封装的物理机制及其研究进展,综述了解决应变和温度交叉敏感问题的方法,提出了一种基于压力传感增敏效果好的多层封装结构,同时还利用2种聚合物不同的力学特性,设计了一种解决应变和温度交叉敏感的封装方法,讨论了封装材料对增敏效果的影响.     

一种面向节点定位的移动信标动态路径规划方法

针对基于移动信标的传感器节点定位问题,提出一种基于在线决策的移动信标动态路径规划方法.针对以往算法大都只适用于节点均匀分布的局限,该方法用移动信标不断获取两跳范围内的未定位节点数目,并向最大覆盖未定位节点方向移动,不需要网络先验信息,即可实现路径的优化.仿真结果表明:与传统方法相比,该方法无需网络的先验信息,在移动路径长度上具有明显优越性,减少了信标的能量消耗,更适用于户外部署的大规模传感器网络.