Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product.

Polyphasic taxonomy, a consensus approach to bacterial systematics.

Brucellosis remains a major zoonosis worldwide Although many countries have eradicated Brucella abortus from cattle, in some areas Brucella melitensis has emerged as a cause of infection in this species as well as in sheep and goats Despite vaccination campaigns with the Rev 1 strain, B melitensis remains the principal cause of human brucellosis Brucella suis is also emerging as an agent of infection in cattle, thus extending its opportunities to infect humans The recent isolation of distinctive strains of Brucella from marine mammals has extended its ecologic range Molecular genetic studies have demonstrated phylogenetic affiliation to Agrobacterium, Phyllobacterium, Ochrobactrum, and Rhizobium Polymerase chain reaction and gene probe development may provide more effective typing methods Pathogenicity is related to production of lipopolysaccharides containing a poly N-formyl perosamine O chain, CuZn superoxide dismutase, erythrlose phosphate dehydrogenase, stress-induced proteins related to intracellular survival, and adenine and guanine monophosphate inhibitors of phagocyte functions Protective immunity is conferred by antibody to lipopolysaccharide and T-cell-mediated macrophage activation triggered by protein antigens Diagnosis still centers on isolation of the organism and serologic test results, especially enzyme immunoassay, which is replacing other methods Polymerase chain reaction is also under evaluation Therapy is based on tetracyclines with or without rifampicin, aminoglycosides, or quinolones No satisfactory vaccines against human brucellosis are available, although attenuated purE mutants appear promising

/pdf/brucellosis-an-overview-14k0fkto7f.pdf

Brucellosis: an overview.

Project scheduling under uncertainty: survey and research potentials

http://web.nchu.edu.tw/pweb/users/arborfish/lesson/8682.pdf

A survey of variants and extensions of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem

In the last few decades the resource-constrained project scheduling problem has become a popular problem type in operations research. However, due to its strongly NP-hard status, the effectiveness of exact optimisation procedures is restricted to relatively small instances. In this paper we present a new genetic algorithm (GA) for this problem, able to provide near-optimal heuristic solutions. This GA procedure has been extended by a so-called decomposition-based heuristic (DBH) which iteratively solves subparts of the project. We present computational experiments on two datasets. The first benchmark set is used to illustrate the contribution of both the GA and the DBH. The second set is used to compare the results with current state-of-the-art heuristics, and to show that the procedure is capable of producing consistently good results for challenging instances of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. We illustrate that GA is currently the best performing RCPSP meta-heuristic, and that the DBH further improves the performance of the GA

A Decomposition-Based Heuristic For The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem

The significant lead times and costs associated with materials and equipment in combination with intrinsic and weather related variability render the planning of offshore construction projects highly complex. Moreover, the way in which scarce resources are managed has a profound impact on both the cost and the completion date of a project. Hence, schedule quality is of paramount importance to the profitability of the project. A prerequisite to the creation of good schedules is the accuracy of the procedure used to estimate the project outcome when a given schedule is used. Because of the systematic influence of weather conditions, traditional Monte Carlo simulations fail to produce a reliable estimate of the project outcomes. Hence, the first objective of this research is to improve the accuracy of the project simulation by creating a procedure which includes both uncertainty related to the activities and an integrated model of the weather conditions. The weather component has been designed to create realistically correlated wind- and weather conditions for operationally relevant time intervals. The second objective of this research is to optimise the project planning itself by using both general meta-heuristic optimisation approaches and dedicated heuristics which have been specifically designed for the problem at hand. The performance of these heuristics is judged by the expected net present value of the project. The approach presented in this paper is tested on real data from the construction of an offshore wind farm off the Belgian coast and weather data gathered by the Flanders Marine Institute using measuring poles in the North Sea.

Optimised scheduling for weather sensitive offshore construction projects

Due to the adoption of more and more complex incentive contract structures for projects, designing the best contract for a specific situation has become an increasingly daunting task for project owners. Through the combination of findings from contracting literature with knowledge from the domain of project management, a quantitative model for the contract design problem is constructed. The contribution of this research is twofold. First of all, a comprehensive and quantitative methodology to analyse incentive contract design is introduced, based on an extensive review of the existing literature. Secondly, based on this methodology, computational experiments are carried out, which result in a set of managerial guidelines for incentive contract design. Our analysis shows that substantial improvements can often be attained by using contracts which include incentives for cost, duration as well as scope simultaneously. Moreover, nonlinear and piecewise linear formulae to calculate the incentive amounts are shown to improve both the performance and robustness across different projects.

Incentive contract design for projects : the owner׳s perspective

Resource-constrained project scheduling is a widely discussed project management topic which has roots in and relevance for both academic and practical oriented environments. Due to its inherent problem complexity, it has been the subject of numerous research projects leading to a wide and diverse set of procedures and algorithms to construct resource feasible project schedules. Thanks to its practical value, many of the research results have found their way to practical project management projects. This chapter gives an overview of the project scheduling efforts and needs in order to bring the academics closer to real life projects and vice versa. It gives an extensive overview on the use of resources in dynamic scheduling problems and discusses various scheduling objectives to optimize the schedule to the wishes and needs of the company or project owner. The chapter also gives a set of techniques to validate the quality of the resource feasible baseline schedules and highlights some important features and characteristics that should be taken into account when using scheduling tools.

Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling

This book presents an integrated approach to monitoring projects in progress using Earned Value and Earned Schedule Management combined with Schedule Risk Analysis. Monitoring and controlling projects involves processes for identifying potential problems in a timely manner. When necessary, corrective actions can be taken to exploit project opportunities or to get faltering projects back on track. The prerequisite is that project performance is observed and measured regularly to identify variances from the project baseline schedule. Therefore, monitoring the performance of projects in progress requires a set of tools and techniques that should ideally be combined into a single integrated system. The book offers a valuable resource for anyone who wants to understand the theory first and then to use it in practice with software tools.

Mario Vanhoucke

Papers

A Decomposition-Based Heuristic For The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem

Optimised scheduling for weather sensitive offshore construction projects

Incentive contract design for projects : the owner׳s perspective

Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling

Integrated Project Management and Control : First Comes the Theory, then the Practice