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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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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Abstract: Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma have a high prevalence and disease burden. Blended self-management interventions, which combine eHealth with face-to-face interventions, can help reduce the disease burden. Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to examine the effectiveness of blended self-management interventions on health-related effectiveness and process outcomes for people with COPD or asthma. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, COCHRANE Library, Emcare, and Embase were searched in December 2018 and updated in November 2020. Study quality was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias (ROB) 2 tool and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation. Results: A total of 15 COPD and 7 asthma randomized controlled trials were included in this study. The meta-analysis of COPD studies found that the blended intervention showed a small improvement in exercise capacity (standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.48; 95% CI 0.10-0.85) and a significant improvement in the quality of life (QoL; SMD 0.81; 95% CI 0.11-1.51). Blended intervention also reduced the admission rate (relative ratio [RR] 0.61; 95% CI 0.38-0.97). In the COPD systematic review, regarding the exacerbation frequency, both studies found that the intervention reduced exacerbation frequency (RR 0.38; 95% CI 0.26-0.56). A large effect was found on BMI (d=0.81; 95% CI 0.25-1.34); however, the effect was inconclusive because only 1 study was included. Regarding medication adherence, 2 of 3 studies found a moderate effect (d=0.73; 95% CI 0.50-0.96), and 1 study reported a mixed effect. Regarding self-management ability, 1 study reported a large effect (d=1.15; 95% CI 0.66-1.62), and no effect was reported in that study. No effect was found on other process outcomes. The meta-analysis of asthma studies found that blended intervention had a small improvement in lung function (SMD 0.40; 95% CI 0.18-0.62) and QoL (SMD 0.36; 95% CI 0.21-0.50) and a moderate improvement in asthma control (SMD 0.67; 95% CI 0.40-0.93). A large effect was found on BMI (d=1.42; 95% CI 0.28-2.42) and exercise capacity (d=1.50; 95% CI 0.35-2.50); however, 1 study was included per outcome. There was no effect on other outcomes. Furthermore, the majority of the 22 studies showed some concerns about the ROB, and the quality of evidence varied. Conclusions: In patients with COPD, the blended self-management interventions had mixed effects on health-related outcomes, with the strongest evidence found for exercise capacity, QoL, and admission rate. Furthermore, the review suggested that the interventions resulted in small effects on lung function and QoL and a moderate effect on asthma control in patients with asthma. There is some evidence for the effectiveness of blended self-management interventions for patients with COPD and asthma; however, more research is needed. Trial Registration: PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42019119894; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=119894
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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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Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport was the second European airport in terms of traffic in 2019, having transported 76.2 million passengers. Its large infrastructures include four runways, a large taxiway network, and 298 aircraft parking stands (131 contact) among three terminals. With the current pandemic in place, the European air traffic network has declined by −65% flights when compared with 2019 traffic (pre-COVID-19), having a severe negative impact on the aviation industry. More and more often taxiways and runways are used as parking spaces for aircraft as consequence of the drastic decrease in air traffic. Furthermore, due to safety reasons, passenger terminals at many airports have been partially closed. In this work we want to study the effect of the reduction in the physical facilities at airports on airspace and airport capacity, especially in the Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) airspace, and in the airport ground side. We have developed a methodology that considers rare events such as the current pandemic, and evaluates reduced access to airport facilities, considers air traffic management restrictions and evaluates the capacity of airport ground side and airspace. We built scenarios based on real public information on the current use of the airport facilities of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and conducted different experiments based on current and hypothetical traffic recovery scenarios. An already known optimization metaheuristic was implemented for optimizing the traffic with the aim of avoiding airspace conflicts and avoiding capacity overloads on the ground side. The results show that the main bottleneck of the system is the terminal capacity, as it starts to become congested even at low traffic (35% of 2019 traffic). When the traffic starts to increase, a ground delay strategy is effective for mitigating airspace conflicts; however, it reveals the need for additional runways
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This research aims to find relevant evidence on whether there is a link between air capacity management (ACM) optimization and airline operations, also considering the airline business model perspective. The selected research strategy includes a case study based on Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to measure the impact of ACM optimization variables on airline operations. For the analysis we use historical data which allows us to evaluate to what extent the new schedule obtained from the optimized scenario disrupts airline planned operations. The results of this study indicate that ACM optimization has a substantial impact on airline operations. Moreover, the airlines were categorized according to their business model, so that the results of this study revealed which category was the most affected. In detail, this study revealed that, on the one hand, Full-Service Cost Carriers (FSCCs) were the most impacted and the presented ACM optimization variables had a severe impact on slot allocation (approximately 50% of slots lost), fuel burn accounted as extra flight time in the airspace (approximately 12 min per aircraft) and disrupted operations (approximately between 31% and 39% of the preferred assigned runways were changed). On the other hand, the comparison shows that the implementation of an optimization model for managing the airport capacity, leads to a more balanced usage of runways and saves between 7% and 8% of taxi time (which decreases fuel emission).
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The increasing rate of urbanization along with its socio-environmental impact are major global challenges. Therefore, there is a need to assess the boundaries to growth for the future development of cities by the inclusion of the assessment of the environmental carrying capacity (ECC) into spatial management. The purpose is to assess the resource dependence of a given entity. ECC is usually assessed based on indicators such as the ecological footprint (EF) and biocapacity (BC). EF is a measure of the biologically productive areas demanded by human consumption and waste production. Such areas include the space needed for regenerating food and fibers as well as sequestering the generated pollution, particularly CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels. BC reflects the biological regeneration potential of a given area to regenerate resources as well to absorb waste. The city level EF assessment has been applied to urban zones across the world, however, there is a noticeable lack of urban EF assessments in Central Eastern Europe. Therefore, the current research is a first estimate of the EF and BC for the city of Wrocław, Poland. This study estimates the Ecological Footprint of Food (EFF) through both a top-down assessment and a hybrid top-down/bottom-up assessment. Thus, this research verifies also if results from hybrid method could be comparable with top-down approach. The bottom-up component of the hybrid analysis calculated the carbon footprint of food using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The top-down result ofWrocław’s EFF were 1% greater than the hybrid EFF result, 0.974 and 0.963 gha per person respectively. The result indicated that the EFF exceeded the BC of the city of Wrocław 10-fold. Such assessment support efforts to increase resource efficiency and decrease the risk associated with resources—including food security. Therefore, there is a need to verify if a city is able to satisfy the resource needs of its inhabitants while maintaining the natural capital on which they depend intact. Original article at: https://doi.org/10.3390/resources7030052 © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI.
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Stakeholders in the Netherlands' rail cargo sector exhibit strategic behavior that causes irregularity and unpredictability in freight trains. This leads to the suboptimal use of scarce rail capacity. The authors present the results of a research project that used gaming to explore and validate alternative organizational methods for the management of rail cargo capacity with decision makers and subject matter experts from ProRail, the Netherlands' railway infrastructure manager. Various scenarios for the organization of rail cargo capacity management were played out, tested, and extensively debriefed in three project phases. The gaming sessions demonstrated that open information sharing among stakeholders does not depend on the introduction of price mechanisms and is, indeed, a more effective way of managing capacity. The authors conclude that it is vital to introduce gaming gradually and build up organizational acceptance for this method. However, once acceptance has been achieved, gaming can generate valuable insight into strategic behavior and the performance of sociotechnical infrastructures.
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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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Introduction: Self-management is considered a potential answer to the increasing demand for family medicine by people suffering from a chronic condition or multi-morbidity. A key element of self-management is goal setting. Goal setting is often defined as a moment of agreement between a professional and a patient. In the self-management literature, however, goal setting is regarded as a circular process. Still, it is unclear how professionals working in family medicine can put it into practice. This background paper aims to contribute to the understanding of goal setting within self-management and to identify elements that need further development for practical use. Debate: Four questions for debate emerge in this article: (1) What are self-management goals? (2) What is necessary to accomplish the process of goal setting within self-management? (3) How can professionals decide on the degree of support needed for goal setting within self-management? (4) How can patients set their goals and how can they be supported? Implications: Self-management goals can be set for different (life) domains. Using a holistic framework will help in creating an overview of patients’ goals that do not merely focus on medical issues. It is a challenge for professionals to coach their patients to think about and set their goals themselves. More insight in patients’ willingness and ability to set self-management goals is desirable. Moreover, as goal setting is a circular process, professionals need to be supported to go through this process with their patients.
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