Dosimetric Evaluation of Three Dimensional Conformal and Conventional Treatment Plans of Early Untreated Carcinoma of Nasopharynx

Objective： Conventional external beam irradiation techniques for nasopharyngeal carcinoma have limitations, and improving external beam irradiation techniques is needed to enhance the curative rate. This study was designed to cvaluate the difference in dose distribution of three dimensional conformal radiotherapy （3D CRT） and conventional treatment plan in early untreated nasopharyngeal carcinoma using a three dimensional treatment planning system. Methods： Twenty-two patients with early untreated nasopharyngeal carcinoma were selected. Conventional and 3D CRT plans were made for each of them and compared with respect to target volume coverage （V95）,normal tissue sparing （D50, D33 and D5, etc）, normal tissue complication probability （NTCP）. Results： The average volumetric dose comparison indicated that the V95 of PTVnx70 were 98.22% and 99.99% （P=0.06）, and PTVnd60, 98.41% and 99.63% （P=1.00）, PTV,x60, 98.44% and 99.98% （P=0.03）, PTVnx50, 98.85% and 99.63% （P=0.02） in conventional and 3DCRT treatment plans respectively. With respect to normal tissue sparing, the average D50 of unilateral parotid glands were 51.91 Gy and 64.30 Gy （P=0.00） respectively, and the unilateral temporomandibular joints, 49.98 Gy and 64.47 Gy （P=0.00）, the Dlcc of spinal cords, 44.98 Gy and 48.09 Gy （P=0.00） in 3D CRT and conventional plans. Conclusion： Though only a little bit better dose coverage of target volume in subclinical lesion region was reached in 3D CRT plans, it spared more normal tissues e.g. parotid glands and temporomandibular joints etc and decreased their NTCP while it got the similar dose distribution in target volumes as conventional plans did for these early nasopharyngeal carcinoma cases.

Design of Accelerated Life Test Plans——Overview and Prospect

Accelerated life test(ALT) is currently the main method of assessing product reliability rapidly, and the design of efficient test plans is a critical step to ensure that ALTs can assess the product reliability accurately, quickly, and economically. With the promotion of the national strategy of civil-military integration, ALT will be widely used in the research and development(R&D) of various types of products, and the ALT plan design theory will face further challenges. To aid engineers in selecting appropriate theories and to stimulate researchers to develop the theories required in engineering, with focus on the demands for theory research that arise from the implementation of ALT, this paper reviews and summarizes the development of ALT plan design theory. The development of the theory and method for planning optimal ALT for location-scale distribution, which is the most applied and mature theory of designing the optimal ALT plan, are described in detail. Taking this as the center of radiation, some problems that ALT now faces, such as the verification of the statistical model, limitation of sample size, solutions of resource limits, optimization of the test arrangement, and management of product complexity, are discussed, and the general ideas and methods of solving these problems are analyzed. Suggestions for selecting appropriate ALT plan design theories are proposed, and the urgent solved theory problems and opinions of their solutions are proposed. Based on the principle of convenience for engineers to select appropriate methods according to the problems found in practice, this paper reviews the development of optimal ALT plan design theory by taking the engineering problems arising from the ALT implementation as the main thread, provides guidelines on selecting appropriate theories for engineers, and proposes opinions about the urgent solved theory problems for researchers.

Optimum design of equivalent accelerated life testing plans based on proportional hazards-proportional odds model

The optimum design of equivalent accelerated life testing plan based on proportional hazards-proportional odds model using D-optimality is presented. The defined equivalent test plan is the test plan that has the same value of the determinant of Fisher information matrix. The equivalent test plan of step stress accelerated life testing （SSALT） to a baseline optimum constant stress accelerated life testing （CSALT） plan is obtained by adjusting the censoring time of SSALT and solving the optimization problem for each case to achieve the same value of the determinant of Fisher information matrix as in the baseline optimum CSALT plan. Numer- ical examples are given finally which demonstrate the equivalent SSALT plan to the baseline optimum CSALT plan reduces almost half of the test time while achieving approximately the same estimation errors of model parameters.

Planning and Ecological Greening of Agricultural Sci-Tech Ecological Demonstration Park in Suning County,Hebei Province

Taking the control detailed planning of Suning Agricultural Sci-Tech Ecological Demonstration Park in Hebei Province for example,general methods for the planning of modern agricultural sci-tech parks were introduced from the perspective of general situation of the planning area,technical routes,guiding concepts and planning principles,ecological greening and plant confi guration of the parks was discussed.

Abbreviated Report of the WHO Western Pacific Region Workshop on National Plans of Action for Nutrition: Key Elements for Success, Constraints and Future Plans

A workshop on National Plans of Action for Nutrition: Constraints, Key Elements for Success, and Future Plans was convened and organized by the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific in collaboration with the Institute for Medical Research Malaysia and co sponsored with FAO and UNICEF from 25—29 October 1999. It was attended by representatives of 25 countries in the region and resource persons, representatives from WHO and other international agencies. The objectives of the workshop were to review the progress of countries in developing, implementing and monitoring national plans of action for nutrition (NPANs) in the Western Pacific Region and to identify constraints and key elements of success in these efforts. Most of the countries have NPANs, either approved and implemented or awaiting official endorsement. The Plan formulation is usually multisectoral, involving several government ministries, non governmental organizations, and international agencies. Often official adoption or endorsement of the Plan comes from the head of state and cabinet or the minister of health, one to six years from the start of its formulation. The NPAN has stimulated support for the development and implementation of nutrition projects and activities, with comparatively greater involvement of and more support from government ministries, UN agencies and non-governmental agencies compared to local communities, bilateral and private sectors and research and academic institutions. Monitoring and evaluation are important components of NPANs. They are, however, not given high priority and often not built into the plan. The role of an intersectoral coordinating body is considered crucial to a country's nutrition program. Most countries have an intersectoral structure or coordinating body to ensure the proper implementation, monitoring and evaluation of their NPANs. The workshop identified the constraints and key elements of success in each of the four stages of the NPAN process: development, operationalization, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Constraints to the NPAN process relate to the political and socioeconomic environment, resource scarcity, control and management processes, and factors related to sustainability. The group's review of NPAN identified successful NPANs as those based on recent, adequate and good quality information on the nutritional situation of the country, and on the selection of strategies, priorities and interventions that are relevant to the country and backed up by adequate resources. Continued high level political commitment, a multisectoral approach, and adequate participation of local communities are other key elements for success. The participants agreed on future actions and support needed from various sources for the further development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of their NPANs. The recommendations for future actions were categorized into actions pertaining to countries with working NPAN, actions for countries without working NPAN and actions relevant to all countries. There was also a set of suggested actions at the regional level, such as holding of regular regional NPAN evaluation meetings, inclusion of NPAN on the agenda of regional fora by the regional organizations, and strengthening of regional nutrition networks.

China’s 13th and 14th Five-Year Plans:Review and Advice

The 13th Five-year Plan period ushered in a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics.During this period,China’s economy transitioned from rapid to high-quality growth and weathered the storms of the trade war with the United States and the COVID-19 outbreak.Chinese policymakers embraced new development concepts,and fought to cut overcapacity and excess inventory,deleverage,lower costs,and bolster weak areas under the theme of supply-side structural reforms.In fighting the three tough battles of major risk prevention,targeted poverty reduction and pollution abatement,China has largely resolved myriad structural contradictions and maintained rapid domestic economic growth and stability.Most targets for the 13th Five-year Plan period have been achieved ahead of time or are near completion on time.Institutional sophistication has bolstered high-quality development.

Power Inverted Topp–Leone Distribution in Acceptance Sampling Plans

We introduce a new two-parameter model related to the inverted Topp–Leone distribution called the power inverted Topp–Leone(PITL)distribution.Major properties of the PITL distribution are stated;including;quantile measures,moments,moment generating function,probability weighted moments,Bonferroni and Lorenz curve,stochastic ordering,incomplete moments,residual life function,and entropy measure.Acceptance sampling plans are developed for the PITL distribution,when the life test is truncated at a pre-specified time.The truncation time is assumed to be the median lifetime of the PITL distribution with pre-specified factors.The minimum sample size necessary to ensure the specified life test is obtained under a given consumer’s risk.Numerical results for given consumer’s risk,parameters of the PITL distribution and the truncation time are obtained.The estimation of the model parameters is argued using maximum likelihood,least squares,weighted least squares,maximum product of spacing and Bayesian methods.A simulation study is confirmed to evaluate and compare the behavior of different estimates.Two real data applications are afforded in order to examine the flexibility of the proposed model compared with some others distributions.The results show that the power inverted Topp–Leone distribution is the best according to the model selection criteria than other competitive models.

Urban Air Quality Plans and Integrated Assessment Methodologies

The air quality directive （2008/50/EC （of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008）） requires European Member States to design appropriate AQPs （air quality plans） for zones and agglomerations where the air quality does not comply with the limit values and to assess possible emission reduction measures to decrease concentration levels. The Portuguese agglomeration of Porto Litoral is one of the several European Union urban areas that had to develop and implement AQPs to reduce particulate matter （PM10）. The AQPs were initially designed based on a scenario approach and using an air quality model, which was applied over the study region for the reference situation with the current PM10 emissions, and for a reduction scenario with PM10 emissions re-estimated considering the implementation of abatement measures. Aiming to cost-efficiently optimize Porto Litoral PM10 abatement measures, the assessment procedure was repeated using an optimization approach based on the RIAT ＋ （regional integrated assessment tool ＋）. Porto Litoral urban area＇s technical and non-technical measures were characterized （including associated costs） and, through the application of the air quality model to 20 emissions abatement scenarios, S-R （source-receptor） relationships were created. This paper comparatively describes the air quality plans designed to improve PM10 levels in the Porto Litoral agglomeration based on both the scenario analysis and the optimization approach.

Acceptance Sampling Plans with Truncated Life Tests for the Length-Biased Weighted Lomax Distribution

In this paper,we considered the Length-biased weighted Lomax distribution and constructed new acceptance sampling plans(ASPs)where the life test is assumed to be truncated at a pre-assigned time.For the new suggested ASPs,the tables of the minimum samples sizes needed to assert a specific mean life of the test units are obtained.In addition,the values of the corresponding operating characteristic function and the associated producer’s risks are calculated.Analyses of two real data sets are presented to investigate the applicability of the proposed acceptance sampling plans;one data set contains the first failure of 20 small electric carts,and the other data set contains the failure times of the air conditioning system of an airplane.Comparisons are made between the proposed acceptance sampling plans and some existing acceptance sampling plans considered in this study based on the minimum sample sizes.It is observed that the samples sizes based on the proposed acceptance sampling plans are less than their competitors considered in this study.The suggested acceptance sampling plans are recommended for practitioners in the field.

Variables associated with suicide ideation and plans in a Japanese population

The purpose of our study was to clarify variables associated with suicide ideation and plans in a Japanese population. We conducted a random-sampling survey on mental health and suicide using a self-administered questionnaire for Hamamatsu City residents aged 15-79 yrs between May and June, 2008. This included questions about gender, age, outpatient treatment, alcohol problems, depression, living ar-rangements, marital status, annual family income, industry types as well as suicide ideation and plans. The correlation between these variables and suicide ideation or plans was then analyzed with multiple logistic regression analysis by gender. A total of 1051 responded to this questionnaire (response rate, 53.9%). Variables statistically associated with suicide ideation in males included alcohol problems, depression, lower annual family income, and ac-commodations/eating/drinking services, while in females, the variables were younger age, outpatient treatment, depression, living alone, being single, being separated, lower annual family income, accommodations/eating/drinking services and unemployment. On the other hand, variables statistically associated with suicide plans in males were younger age, alcohol problems, depression, and lower annual family income, while in females they were younger age, alcohol problems, depression, being separated, lower annual family income, manufacturing, and accommodations/eating/drinking services. Ex-cept for industry types, variables associated with suicide ideation or plans were consistent with previous studies. The reason why workers engaging in manufacturing, or accommoda-tions/eating/drinking services were more likely to have suicide ideation or plans may be attributed to the structures and/or stresses unique to those industries.

Evolutionary Decision-Making and Planning for Autonomous Driving Based on Safe and Rational Exploration and Exploitation

Decision-making and motion planning are extremely important in autonomous driving to ensure safe driving in a real-world environment.This study proposes an online evolutionary decision-making and motion planning framework for autonomous driving based on a hybrid data-and model-driven method.First,a data-driven decision-making module based on deep reinforcement learning(DRL)is developed to pursue a rational driving performance as much as possible.Then,model predictive control(MPC)is employed to execute both longitudinal and lateral motion planning tasks.Multiple constraints are defined according to the vehicle’s physical limit to meet the driving task requirements.Finally,two principles of safety and rationality for the self-evolution of autonomous driving are proposed.A motion envelope is established and embedded into a rational exploration and exploitation scheme,which filters out unreasonable experiences by masking unsafe actions so as to collect high-quality training data for the DRL agent.Experiments with a high-fidelity vehicle model and MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation environment are conducted,and the results show that the proposed online-evolution framework is able to generate safer,more rational,and more efficient driving action in a real-world environment.

Risk Assessment from Catchment to Consumers as Framed in Water Safety Plans: A Study from Maiduguri Water Treatment Plant, North East Nigeria

Water safety plan as conceived by WHO can lead to prevention of pollution in each component of water supply chain which leads to ensuring safe drinking water. Risk assessment is one of the key components during the development of water safety plan, achieved by identifying hazardous events and estimating their risk towards implementing control measures. This study reports the risk assessment from catchment to consumers in Maiduguri water treatment plant in Northeast Nigeria. Tools such as the field visits, key informant interviews, questionnaire and water quality monitoring were used to identify the hazards and estimate their risk using semi-quantitative matrix. With the existing control measures, the study showed a total of 33 hazardous events;5 in catchment, 16 in treatment plant, 6 in distribution system and 6 at consumers’ points. The risk score indicated 6 are of medium risk and 9 of high risk. Catchment activities, upgrade of treatment facilities and lack of routine maintenance in the treatment plant, pipeline damages in distribution lines, and consumers’ lack of hygiene knowledge and awareness were found to be the major contributory factors which affect the desired quality. Therefore participation and commitment by all relevant stakeholders are fundamental requisite to manage the identified health risks.

Optimal Bayesian Sampling Plans Based on Hybrid Type-Ⅱ Censored Samples

The Bayesian sampling plans for exponential distributions are studied based on type-Ⅱ hybrid censored samples. The optimal Bayesian sampling plan is derived under a general loss function which includes the sampling cost, time-consuming cost, salvage value,and decision loss. It is employed to determine the Bayes risk and the corresponding optimal sampling plan. An explicit expression of the Bayes risk is derived. Furthermore,for the conjugate prior distribution,the closed-form formula of the Bayes decision rule can be obtained under either the linear or quadratic decision loss.

Application of the Engineering-Geological Conditions in Land-Use Plans in the Petrvald Region(Czech Republic)

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate necessity to inform relevant parties about engineering-geological conditions for various practical purposes, especially including appropriate land-use planning. However, the relationship between relevant geological information and the geological environment is vital for foundation engineering purposes, especially where demanding structures are involved. This information is most conveniently structured when accumulated information concerning engineering-geological zones is utilized. This necessarily includes knowledge of rock workability and also of the pre-Quaternary bedrock, and these characteristics were then related to the current built-up area and future development according to the land-use plans in a case study are from the Petrvald Region （Czech Republic）. The geological environment of area has been severely influenced by anthropogenic effects of deep black coal mining. Results of this research showed that future development should be founded on spoil banks, dumps, and settling basins. According to the land-use plan, this zone occupies 44.9% of the area of interest, and its materials predominantly emanate from mining in the Ostrava-Karvina Coal District. For future foundation structures planned there, it is imperative to consult detailed engineering-geological study. However, attention to and reliance on this necessity is not reflected in the existing land-use plan.

FAST GENERATION OF OPTIMAL ASSEMBLY PLANS

Existing approaches to automatic assembly planning often lead to combinatorial explo- sion. When the parts composing the assembly increase in number, computer-aided planning be- comes much slower than manual planning. Efforts to reduce the computing time by taking into ac- count various constraints and criteria to guide the search for the optimal plan requires too much input information, so as to offset the convenience of automatic assembly planning. In addition, as the planner becomes more complicated, such efforts often fail to reach the objective. This paper presents a new concep── unit , asserting that the intemal structure of an assembly is hierachical. Every disassembly operation only handles several units, no matter how many parts are involved. Furthermore, the scenario of disassembly is brought to light. It relates to only two key data──the liaison type and the assembly direction. The computational cast of this approach is roughly propor. tional to the number of parts. A planner, implementing these principlcs can generate the optimal as- sembly plans dramatically faster than the known approaches.

Development of Algorithm and System for Automatic Generation of Nursing Summaries from Nursing Care Plans

A nursing care planning system that automatically generated nursing summaries from information entered into the Psychiatric Outcome Management System (PSYCHOMS?, Tanioka et al.), was developed to enrich the content of nursing summaries at psychiatric hospitals, thereby reducing the workload of nurses. Preparing nursing summaries entails finding the required information in nursing records that span a long period of time and then concisely summarizing this information. This time consuming process depends on the clinical experience and writing ability of the nurse. The system described here automatically generates the text data needed for nursing summaries using an algorithm that synthesizes patient information recorded in electronic charts, the Nursing Care Plan information or the data entered for North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) 13 domains with predetermined fixed phrases. Advantages of this system are that it enables nursing summaries to be generated automatically in real time, simplifies the process, and permits the standardization of useful nursing summaries that reflect the course of the nursing care provided and its evaluation. Use of this system to automatically generate nursing summaries will allow more nursing time to be devoted to patient care. The system is also useful because it enables nursing summaries that contain the required information to be generated regardless of who prepares them.

Consanguine Philosophies of Traditional Timber-Based and Contemporary Sustainability-Based Forest Resource Management Plans

The earliest American forest resource management plans date to the birth of the forestry profession around 1900. For the next half century, these management plans were essentially timber production management plans. Certainly, other forest values, especially watershed protection, were important parts of the planning. But not until the second half of the twentieth century did multiple-use and a wide array of forest values become normal components of a forest management plan. Within the last twenty-five years forest management plans have developed a forest stewardship or sustainable forest management foundation. That is, a forest resource management plan is now expected to consider an entire set of forest values, to have a long-term sustainability focus, and to meet a set of expected management and operational criteria. Often, the forest management plan is the basis of a forest certification scheme. The early forest management plans were primarily timber-based and thus had a commercial or financial focus. Today’s forest management plans are based on multiple forest values and may or may not have a financial focus. We contrast the traditional timber management plan with today’s sustainable forest management plan, realizing the basis of both plans is by definition the forest or the timber. Involving both timber harvesting activities and the operational foundation of the sustainable forest management plan is essentially a timber management plan. One cannot ignore the fact that all forest management plans accomplish silvicultural objectives via manipulation of timber density variables, like stocking and spacing. Management of a forest still involves timber harvests. Our discussion shows that the timber management plan is still very much alive and forms the basis of modern sustainable forest management plans.

Motion Planning for Autonomous Driving with Real Traffic Data Validation

Accurate trajectory prediction of surrounding road users is the fundamental input for motion planning,which enables safe autonomous driving on public roads.In this paper,a safe motion planning approach is proposed based on the deep learning-based trajectory prediction method.To begin with,a trajectory prediction model is established based on the graph neural network(GNN)that is trained utilizing the INTERACTION dataset.Then,the validated trajectory prediction model is used to predict the future trajectories of surrounding road users,including pedestrians and vehicles.In addition,a GNN prediction model-enabled motion planner is developed based on the model predictive control technique.Furthermore,two driving scenarios are extracted from the INTERACTION dataset to validate and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed motion planning approach,i.e.,merging and roundabout scenarios.The results demonstrate that the proposed method can lower the risk and improve driving safety compared with the baseline method.

Expansion Plans for the Port of Durban： What Are the Issues for the City of Durban？

The Port of Durban is one of the largest ports in the Southern Hemisphere and is the main port for the Southern African region. However, the port is reaching its capacity limit and it is apparent that for South Africa＇s economic growth this port needs to expand. In order to expand the port needs to not only expand its waterside infrastructure but it would need to provide new logistics corridors though the city of Durban. The city of Durban has completely surrounded the port making expansion options difficult and intertwined with the planning of the city. This paper examines the various options and timelines for port expansion as well as the issues from the city perspective. Areas of possible conflict in this process revolve around traffic capacity and related road/rail infrastructure, environmental issues, social and economic impacts.

Investigation of Plans Shape and Glazing Percentage for the Energy Efficiency of Residential Buildings

The room’s plan shape,the area of the window,and the impact of the materials are significant parameters in determining the thermal needs of buildings.In traditional houses of the hot and dry climate of Iran,the plan shape of the room,the ratio of the window area to the floor area,and the comparison between traditional and prevalent materials have been less studied.This study investigated the thermal performance of seven different models of the plan shape,five different ratios of window area to plan area,and three material structures in a selected room of Yazd City using EnergyPlus software.Seven models have different plan shapes but the same floor area,whose thermal balance process calculations have been performed by the CTF method.The results show that the best thermal comfort conditions for the residents are at the window area to floor area ratio of 12%for the brick buildings and 15%for the buildings with thermal insulation and proposed materials.The lowest cooling and heating needs are obtained in a room with an east-west extension and a length-to-width ratio of about 1.38,which indicates the proper plan shape of the selected room.This research can be considered as a climatic strategy to improve the energy efficiency of residential buildings in Yazd.