INTRODUCTION The device closure of atrial septal defects has evolved over the years. In the early days of transcatheter occlusion, balloon sizing was used to choose an appropriate sized device. We postulate that balloon sizing does not value-add to the procedure and is unnecessary. MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients who had balloon sizing, with (Group 1, n = 38) or without (Group 2, n = 21) atria...

One aspect that has mostly been overlooked in traditional economic lot-sizing is the implication of decisions on manual tasks and workload. Although lot-sizing decisions can have a significant impact on required manual material handling and on human performance, works that consider ergonomic aspects in lot-sizing are rare. This paper presents a model that integrates ergonomic aspect in terms of...

A bushing bearing was required between the aluminum connecting rod and the wrist pin to reduce wrist pin bearing wear in a severe application. The bushing could not be machined after assembly and precise control of bearing clearance was achieved by re-sizing (using a mandrel) after assembly. Re-sizing was a critical operation. Too much re-sizing would loosen the bushing pressfit while too littl...

Although work-related driving is associated with high accident rates, limited research has investigated the factors influencing driving crashes in the work setting. This study explored multilevel influences on self-reported crashes in the workplace by surveying a sample of work-related drivers (n = 380), their workgroup supervisors (n = 88), and fleet managers (n = 47). At the driver level of a...

The purpose of this article is to propose a perturbation metaheuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Private fleet and Common carrier (VRPPC). This problem consists of serving all customers such in a way that 1) each customer is served exactly once either by a private fleet vehicle or by a common carrier vehicle, 2) all routes associated with the private fleet start and end at the depot,...

Fleet Management Systems are commonly used to coordinate mobility and delivery services in a broad variety of domains. However, their traditional top-down control architecture becomes a bottleneck in open and dynamic environments, where scalability, proactiveness, and autonomy are becoming key factors for their success. In this paper, we first present an abstract event-based architecture for Fl...

We evaluate the effectiveness of statistical gate sizing to minimize circuit power. We develop reliable posynomial models for delay and power that are accurate to within 5-10% of 130nm library data. We formulate statistical sizing as a geometric program, accounting for randomness in gate delays. For various ISCAS-85 circuits, statistical sizing at a 99.8% target yield provides 25% power reducti...

We address the problem of generating mesh sizing functions from a set of points with specified sizing values. The sizing functions are shown to be maximal and K-Lipschitz, with arbitrary parameter K provided by the user. These properties allow generating low complexity meshes with adjustable gradation. After constructing an additively weighted Voronoi diagram, our algorithm provides fast and ac...

The aims of the present study were to develop and validate a new obesity-specific, parent-proxy measure of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), Sizing Them Up. Participants included 220 obese youth (M(age) = 11.6 years, 68% female, 53% African American, M(BMI) = 36.7) and their primary caregivers (88% mothers). Primary caregivers completed a demographics questionnaire and two HRQOL measures:...

OBJECTIVE We evaluated the current use and fit of structural firefighting gloves and developed an improved sizing scheme that better accommodates the U.S. firefighter population. BACKGROUND Among surveys, 24% to 30% of men and 31% to 62% of women reported experiencing problems with the fit or bulkiness of their structural firefighting gloves. METHOD An age-, race/ethnicity-, and gender-stra...