Nowadays the main airports throughout the world are suffering because their capacity are getting close to saturation due to the air traffic which is still increasing besides the economic crisis and oil prices. In addition, the forecasts predict an increase in air traffic of at least 3.6% until 2020. This situation makes very important to come up with solutions to alleviate capacity congestions in the main airports throughout the world. Capacity has been perceived traditionally as the factor to be addressed in airport systems and it is faced through a technical perspective. In this paper we propose to change the mind-set and view capacity of airport systems taking other factors than pure technical ones. The discussion is illustrated with the example of Schiphol Airport.
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The operations of take-off and landing at hub airports are often subject to a wide variety of delays; the effects of these delays impact not only the related stakeholders, such as aircraft operators, air-traffic control unity and ground handlers but as part of the European network, delays are propagated through the network. As a result, Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) is being employed as a methodology for increasing the efficiency of Air Traffic Management (ATM), through the involvement of partners within the airports. Under CDM, there are some strategic common objectives regardless the airport or the partner specific interest to improve operational efficiency, predictability and punctuality to the ATM network and airport stakeholders. Monitoring and controlling some strategic areas such as, Efficiency, Capacity, Safety and Environment is needed to achieve the benefits. Therefore, the present work aims to provide a framework to monitor the accuracy of capacity in the three main flight phases. It aims to provide a comprehensible and practical approach to monitoring capacity by identifying and proposing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on the A-CDM Milestone Approach to optimise the use of available capacity. To illustrate our approach, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is used as case study as a full A-CDM airport.
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This paper presents an innovative approach that combines optimization and simulation techniques for solving scheduling problems under uncertainty. We introduce an Opt–Sim closed-loop feedback framework (Opt–Sim) based on a sliding-window method, where a simulation model is used for evaluating the optimized solution with inherent uncertainties for scheduling activities. The specific problem tackled in this paper, refers to the airport capacity management under uncertainty, and the Opt–Sim framework is applied to a real case study (Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France). Different implementations of the Opt–Sim framework were tested based on: parameters for driving the Opt–Sim algorithmic framework and parameters for riving the optimization search algorithm. Results show that, by applying the Opt–Sim framework, potential aircraft conflicts could be reduced up to 57% over the non-optimized scenario. The proposed optimization framework is general enough so that different optimization resolution methods and simulation paradigms can be implemented for solving scheduling problems in several other fields.
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From the article: Many organizations are striving for a structural and professional approach toward business information management (BIM). With help of BiSL they can shape the BIM responsibilities and processes, but they struggle with the required capacity for the BIM activities necessary for their particular situation. Therefore, research was started to develop an instrument to determine the required capacity of the BIM activities in an organization. In this paper the construction of the instrument will be described. A limited set of factors may be of importance to identify the required capacity of BIM activities that is needed: complexity of business processes, complexity of IS/IT, dynamics of the organization and its environment and the size of the organization are examples of relevant factors. However, factors that appear relevant may prove useless in practice due to the fact that organizations have no data on these indicators available. Furthermore, the relationships between the present and desired quality of information and information services are part of the instrument. The instrument was tested in practice to determine the usefulness. The results show that the instrument has the potential to determine the required capacity of BIM.
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OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA) increases, but the impact of the disorder on peoples' functional capacity is not known. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare self-reported health status and functional capacity of subjects with early OA of hip and/or knee to reference data of healthy working subjects and to assess whether this capacity is sufficient to meet physical job demands.METHODS: Self-reported health status and functional capacity of 93 subjects from the Cohort Hip and Cohort Knee (CHECK) were measured using the Short-Form 36 Health Survey and 6 tests of the Work Well Systems Functional Capacity Evaluation. Results were compared with reference data from 275 healthy workers, using t-tests. To compare the functional capacity with job demands, the proportions of subjects with OA performing lower than the p(5) of reference data were calculated.RESULTS: Compared to healthy workers, the subjects (mean age 56) from CHECK at baseline reported a significantly worse physical health status, whereas the women (n = 78) also reported a worse mental health status. On the FCE female OA subjects performed significantly lower than their healthy working counterparts on all 6 tests. Male OA subjects performed lower than male workers on 3 tests. A substantial proportion of women demonstrated functional capacities that could be considered insufficient to perform jobs with low physical demands.CONCLUSIONS: Functional capacity and self-reported health of subjects with early OA of the hips and knees were worse compared to healthy ageing workers. A substantial proportion of female subjects did not meet physical job demands.
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In this article, we use Kooiman’s theory of governance in combination with key-conditions of community self-steering identified in recent studies to examine how the self-steering capacity developed of a community initiative aiming at improving the liveability of a small Dutch village. Using non-participatory observations and qualitative analysis, we obtained in-depth insights into how this initiative, ‘Project Ulrum 2034’ managed to build local autonomy from 2010 to 2018. We found that government support was crucial for many of its successes. Also, tensions came to light between 1. local autonomy, and its dependence on professional support, and; 2. broader community engagement, and accountability related to the public funding obtained leading to the formalisation of its organisation and the centralisation of tasks. We discovered that self-steering capacities fluctuate in time, are dynamic and develop in a non-linear way. The voluntary engagement was above all temporary, except for some activities when of direct interest to those involved. The continuity of community self-governance was fragile, due to its dependency on external funding and voluntary engagement.
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In November 2019, scholars and practitioners from ten higher education institutions celebrated the launch of the iKudu project. This project, co-funded by Erasmus [1], focuses on capacity development for curriculum transformation through internationalisation and development of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) virtual exchange. Detailed plans for 2020 were discussed including a series of site visits and face-to-face training. However, the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the plans in ways that could not have been foreseen and new ways of thinking and doing came to the fore. Writing from an insider perspective as project partners, in this paper we draw from appreciative inquiry, using a metaphor of a mosaic as our identity, to first provide the background on the iKudu project before sharing the impact of the pandemic on the project’s adapted approach. We then discuss how alongside the focus of iKudu in the delivery of an internationalised and transformed curriculum using COIL, we have, by our very approach as project partners, adopted the principles of COIL exchange. A positive impact of the pandemic was that COIL offered a consciousness raising activity, which we suggest could be used more broadly in order to help academics think about international research practice partnerships, and, as in our situation, how internationalised and decolonised curriculum practices might be approached. 1. KA2 Erasmus+ Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices (capacity building in the field of Higher Education)
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OBJECTIVES: (1) To study the natural decline in functional capacity (FC) of healthy aging workers; (2) to compare FC to categories of workload; and (3) to study the differences in decline between men and women.DESIGN: Cross-sectional design.SETTING: A rehabilitation center at a university medical center.PARTICIPANTS: Volunteer sample of healthy workers (N=701) between 20 and 60 years of age, working at least 20 hours per week in the year prior to the study. Subjects were recruited via local press and personal networks.INTERVENTIONS: FC was measured with a 14-item Functional Capacity Evaluation. Demographics and health status were measured with a general demographic questionnaire and the RAND-36 questionnaire.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Workload was expressed by the workload categories, as described by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Descriptive statistics were used to present FC of workers. Change in FC by age was tested with segmented regression analyses with a cutoff point at 45 years of age.RESULTS: Significant but small declines of FC under age 45 years were present in repetitive reaching, hand dexterity, and energetic capacity. Up to 45 years of age, hand and finger strength increased on average. Over 45 years of age, lifting, carrying, hand and finger strength, and coordinative tests declined more compared with the group aged less than 45 years. Work capacity of men and women working in sedentary and light work was sufficient in all age categories. There are no differences in decline between men and women.CONCLUSIONS: FC of healthy workers declines with age. This study demonstrates substantial variation in the type of FC decline among healthy workers between 20 and 60 years of age. Material handling, hand and finger strength, and hand coordination appear to decline the most in workers over age 45 years. The objective of rehabilitation is to maximize an individual's FC, particularly with respect to environmental demand. Thus, return to work programs must appreciate both FC and workplace demands in an effort to restore/enhance equilibrium between the 2.
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OBJECTIVE: To determine whether aerobic capacity is normal in boys with different types of hemophilia compared with healthy peers and whether the level of aerobic capacity correlates with the amount of physical activity, joint health status, muscle strength, and anthropometrics.STUDY DESIGN: 47 patients (mean [SD] age, 12.9 [3.2] years; age range, 8.2-17.4 years) from the "Van Creveldkliniek" of the University Medical Center Utrecht, participated. Anthropometry, muscle strength, joint impairment, functional ability, and aerobic capacity were measured. The amount of energy expenditure during daily living was assessed.RESULTS: All boys were able to perform at maximal or near-maximal level on exercise tests, and none of them reported bleeds or other adverse events. Relative peak oxygen, peak heart rate, and peak working capacity were significantly lower compared with healthy control subjects. 30% had Z-scores >2 for weight. Total muscle strength was normal, and almost no joint impairment and no decrease in functional ability were found.CONCLUSION: The aerobic capacity of children with hemophilia is still lower than the normal population, whereas their overall muscle strength is comparable with healthy peers. The functional ability does not differ from healthy peers, and joint health status showed very minor impairments. A substantial proportion of Dutch children with hemophilia was overweight, without showing a reduction in the amount of self-reported physical activities.
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Permeable pavements are a type of SUDS that are becoming more common to allow infiltration, to minimize runoff volumes and to treat urban water stormwater by soil filtration. However, urban stormwater runoff contains significant concentrations of suspended sediments that can cause clogging and reduce the infiltration capacity and effectiveness of permeable pavements. This study used a full-scale infiltration test procedure to evaluate the infiltration performance of 20 permeable pavements that have been in service for over 2 to 9 years in the Netherlands. The observed infiltration capacities range between 20 and 342 mm/h.
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