Background: A system-wide health system strengthening (HSS) initiative, the Health Systems Governance and Accountability (HSGA) intervention, was developed, translated to policy, implemented in Free State province. This study assessed managers (HMs) community representatives’ (CRs) views of intervention whether it improved integration performance.
 
 Method: questionnaire survey among...

This analysis of the future of the Australian Army takes as its rationale the proposition advanced by the military scholar Peter Paret, that the most important problem facing armed forces is never equipment, weapons acquisition or capability development, but the intellectual mastery of current and future military concepts. 1 In terms of intellectual mastery, the Australian Army—like its peers i...

The past 20 years has seen significant investments in the theory and practice of software architecture. However, architectural deficiencies are frequently cited as a key factor in the shortcomings and failures that lead to unpredictable delivery of complex operational systems. Here, we consider the art and science of software architecture: we explore the current state of software architecture, ...

This research is an exploration of the mechanical design and optimization of swarmcapable UAV launchers. Fully autonomous swarms are predicted to play a significant role in the future of war fighting, but the capability is currently limited by deficiencies in supporting technologies. Effectively launching a swarm of UAVs requires a departure from existing solutions due to the unique logistical ...

We review two clustering algorithms (hard c-means and single linkage) and three indexes of crisp cluster validity (Hubert's statistics, the Davies-Bouldin index, and Dunn's index). We illustrate two deficiencies of Dunn's index which make it overly sensitive to noisy clusters and propose several generalizations of it that are not as brittle to outliers in the clusters. Our numerical examples sh...

International freight transport is the foundation of global trade, representing a large and growing industry where various stakeholders collaborate to transport goods around the world. The ICT infrastructures currently employed throughout logistics business networks are limited and the use of manual systems is common. This drastically hampers the operational efficiency of logistic service provi...

The problem of finding a maximum weighted independent set (MWIS) is a classical combinatorial optimization problem of graph theory, which has been proved to be NP-complete (NPC). A 2-D DNA tile self-assembly model for solving the problem has been proposed previously, but it still has many deficiencies. In this paper, we will propose a 3-D DNA tile self-assembly model based on 2D DNA tile self-a...

The development of effective feedback mechanisms between operations and training is an essential predicate to enhancing safety and improving efficiency in any organisation. With the constant demands to streamline training, the design of training programs that adequately reflect operational needs is paramount. This paper describes the use of new observational methodologies in the integrated eval...

Failure to consider anomalous propagation of microwave radiation in the troposphere may result in erroneous meteorological radar measurements. The most commonly occurring anomalous propagation phenomenon over the ocean is the evaporation duct. The height of this duct is dependent on atmospheric variables and is a major input to microwave propagation prediction models. This evaporation duct heig...

There is a growing interest on physical and biogeochemical oceanic hindcasts and forecasts from a wide range of users and businesses. In this contribution we present an operational biogeochemical forecast system for the Portuguese and Galician oceanographic regions, where atmospheric, hydrodynamic and biogeochemical variables are integrated. The ocean model ROMS, with a horizontal resolution of...