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The objective of this study was to evaluate the remaining intake of meals served to patients in an obstetric unit of a hospital in the city of Quixadá, Ceará. For a 10-day period, the analysis of residues was carried on in an obstetric unit that accommodates 24 beds. The residue index was obtained by calculating the ratio, expressed as a percentage, between the weight of the rejected meal subtracted of bone weight, and the meal served. The residue percentage was calculated for each patient, obtaining afterwards, the daily average and, in the end, the 10-day average. Values were considered acceptable when equal or lower than 20%, tolerable limit for sick populations. As the residue index was evaluated, it was verified that, for the majority of days, the percentage was lower than 20%. The residue index average for the 10 days, was 17.6%, which stood out as acceptable. Evaluating the individual residue index, a variation of 42.7g to 128.6g and a 75.6g average have been observed. An absence of normalization for weighing the meals has been verified, considering that the unit still does not work with menu standardization yet. The acceptable levels of food residue in the majority of days analyzed indicates that food waste in the unit is not high. However, the daily control of food residue must be encouraged, aiming at lower costs to the institution and reduction of environmental damages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to evaluate the remaining intake of meals served to patients in an obstetric unit of a hospital in the city of Quixadá, Ceará. For a 10-day period, the analysis of residues was carried on in an obstetric unit that accommodates 24 beds. The residue index was obtained by calculating the ratio, expressed as a percentage, between the weight of the rejected meal subtracted of bone weight, and the meal served. The residue percentage was calculated for each patient, obtaining afterwards, the daily average and, in the end, the 10-day average. Values were considered acceptable when equal or lower than 20%, tolerable limit for sick populations. As the residue index was evaluated, it was verified that, for the majority of days, the percentage was lower than 20%. The residue index average for the 10 days, was 17.6%, which stood out as acceptable. Evaluating the individual residue index, a variation of 42.7g to 128.6g and a 75.6g average have been observed. An absence of normalization for weighing the meals has been verified, considering that the unit still does not work with menu standardization yet. The acceptable levels of food residue in the majority of days analyzed indicates that food waste in the unit is not high. However, the daily control of food residue must be encouraged, aiming at lower costs to the institution and reduction of environmental damages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the next-generation heterogeneous wireless networks, designing authentication protocols that meet the demand of mobile users/applications is a challenge. This paper proposes authentication and re-authentication protocols for 4G wireless networks, in particular, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), WLAN, and WiMAX-Advanced (WiMAX-A) interworking architecture. The proposed protocols are applicable to 5G networks. With the consideration of the existing standard authentication protocols, a new set of authentication and re-authentication protocols has been reinvented to provide fast and secure handovers (HO) in the current 4G and the next 5G networks. The proposed authentication protocols can be invoked when the users perform a vertical HO (between different networks) for the first time, whereas the re-authentication protocols can be invoked when the users perform a horizontal HO (within the same network domain). These protocols provide an efficient method to protect user identity and reduce the burden on the authentication server (AS) during the sequential handovers. The results of the analytical model show that the proposed protocols achieve better performance than standard and other protocols. The reduction of handover cost, handover delay, and energy consumption in the proposed protocols reaches up to 22%, 44%, and 17%, respectively. In addition, the verification tools show that the proposed protocols are secure, dependable, and prevent all types of authentication and secrecy attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to timely forecast accurate project outcomes is fundamental in an industry marked by endemic cost and schedule deviations. Indeed, owners and contractors alike make key strategic decisions about individual projects and capital investment programs alike based on forecasted values. As a departure from current cost and schedule assessments solely based on deviations at completion, this article introduces the Predictability Index, a novel performance metric that also considers the project team’s ability to timely predict outcomes at completion. This article conceptually explains and defines the index and, based on the statistical analysis of retrospective data from 135 completed projects, identifies threshold values of predictability performance. Complementary, lessons learned and observations collected from the adoption and assessment of predictability by industry organizations are also discussed. A significant cultural shift within an organization is necessary for project teams to focus on predictability performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information technology professionals and administrators are required to cut cost, protect current investments, and meet immediate performance demands without service interruption. Achieving these requirements within tight budgetary constraints, they have to consider the task of how to configure and tune their computer systems. In this work presented here, a novel performance prediction system has been used to provide suitable performance models which can determine application mapping parameters, code execution decisions, and system choices on-the-fly. The method uses heuristics and system performance tools to the diagnosis of bottlenecks and provides the necessary remedies to achieve acceptable computer performance. The work introduces a parameter prioritizing tool to focus on those performance critical parameters. It also demonstrates how to reduce the time when tuning a large system with many tunable parameters. The search space can be reduced by checking the relations among parameters to avoid unnecessary search. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses some of the process improvement that companies used to reduce costs as well as increase the efficiency while maintaining the quality ad performance standards as expected by consumers in the U.S. First is to identify the areas wherein improvement opportunities were visible by starting with a problem statement. Then, identify the key process input variables of the company. It further stresses that costs, which are related to restricted workers and lost-time cases is the resulting outcome of many input variable. Moreover, it notes that those inputs must be evaluated and prioritized to ensure that precious resources are not being wasted.