Optimizing fire station locations for the Istanbul metropolitan municipality

Copyright @ 2013 INFORMSThe Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) seeks to determine locations for additional fire stations to build in Istanbul; its objective is to make residences and historic sites reachable by emergency vehicles within five minutes of a fire station’s receipt of a service request. In this paper, we discuss our development of a mathematical model to aid IMM in determining these locations by using data retrieved from its fire incident records. We use a geographic information system to implement the model on Istanbul’s road network, and solve two location models—set-covering and maximal-covering—as what-if scenarios. We discuss 10 scenarios, including the situation that existed when we initiated the project and the scenario that IMM implemented. The scenario implemented increases the city’s fire station coverage from 58.6 percent to 85.9 percent, based on a five-minute response time, with an implementation plan that spans three years

The chlL ( frxC ) gene: Phylogenetic distribution in vascular plants and DNA sequence from Polystichum acrostichoides ( Pteridophyta ) and Synechococcus sp. 7002 ( Cyanobacteria )

We examined chlL ( frxC ) gene evolution using several approaches. Sequences from the chloroplast genome of the fern Polystichum acrostichoides and from the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. 7002 were determined and found to be highly conserved. A complete physical map of the fern chloroplast genome and partial maps of other vascular plant taxa show that chlL is located primarily in the small single copy region as in Marchantia polymorpha. A survey of a wide variety of non-angiospermous vascular plant DNAs shows that chlL is widely distributed but has been lost in the pteridophyte Psilotum and (presumably independently) within the Gnetalean gymnosperms.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41636/1/606_2004_Article_BF00994092.pd

08S-SIW-025 WarpIV Technologies, Inc. 1/30/08 Simulating Parallel Overlapping Universes in the Fifth Dimension with HyperWarpSpeed Implemented in the WarpIV Kernel

ABSTRACT: This paper describes a revolutionary information processing approach that will increase warfighter productivity by orders of magnitude for problems requiring analysis, planning, optimization, and dynamic situation assessment and prediction in live operational environments. This technology, known as HyperWarpSpeed, breaks the four-dimensional barrier of space and time by extending modeling, simulation, and analysis into the fifth dimension. HyperWarpSpeed optimizes the simulation of parallel overlapping universes using Bayesian branching, multireplication state variable data types, event splitting, and event merging techniques. Multiple excursions can be explored within a single simulation execution while aggressively sharing computations between branches whenever possible. This is in stark contrast to traditional and wasteful brute-force Monte Carlo approaches requiring the execution of hundreds or thousands of simulation replications to achieve statistical validity and/or to explore potential outcomes. In addition, HyperWarpSpeed is able to achieve scalable computational speedup on emerging multicore and distributed computing architectures. The multicore revolution has already begun. It is necessary for next generation software to embrace parallel processing methodologies to achieve scalable performance. With its rollback-based event processing algorithms, HyperWarpSpeed is well positioned to support real-time dynamic situation assessment and prediction of complex battlefield scenarios in live operational settings. Control theory techniques, such as Kalman Filters, are used to continually calibrate the simulation with live measurements as they ar

Effect of ex vivo cytokine treatment on human cord blood engraftment in NOD-scid mice.

Umbilical cord blood transplantation is considered an alternative to traditional bone marrow transplantation for patients who do not have matched sibling donors. In this study, we examined the effects of ex vivo treatment of human cord blood cells with cytokine mixtures and assessed the ability of treated cells to engraft in NOD-scid mice. We incubated the cord blood with a four-factor cytokine mixture of interleukin (IL)-3, IL-6, IL-11 and stem cell factor, or with a two-factor cytokine mixture of thrombopoietin and flt-3. Incubation of cord blood for 48 h with either cytokine mixture did not affect progenitor cell number or proliferative potential as measured by the high proliferative potential (HPP) assay. Cytokine-treated cord blood injected into irradiated NOD-scid mice resulted in multilineage human engraftment. Overall, incubation with cytokines resulted in variable levels of engraftment with different cord blood samples. Incubation of cord blood with the four-factor cytokine mixture resulted in increased survival of irradiated NOD-scid recipients. These results demonstrate that short-term ex vivo treatment of human progenitor cells gives variable results on in vivo multipotential capabilities

Variables to predict engraftment of umbilical cord blood into immunodeficient mice: usefulness of the non-obese diabetic--severe combined immunodeficient assay.

Umbilical cord blood is an alternative stem cell source for patients without matched family donors. In this study, we examined several parameters that have not been studied in detail -- radiation dose, cell dose, age of mice, and maternal and neonatal characteristics of the cord blood donor -- that affect engraftment of cord blood in non-obese diabetic-severe combined immunodeficient (NOD--scid) mice. Engraftment, measured using flow cytometry analyses of human CD45(+) cells, was highest in 400 cGy-treated mice. Successful engraftment was demonstrated up to 6 months, with a mean engraftment of 31% (range 0--67%) of human cells in recipient bone marrow. Engraftment was skewed to B lymphocytes. The radiation dose of 350 cGy resulted in superior survival of the murine recipients compared with 400 cGy (P = 0.03). The sex of the NOD--scid recipients had a significant effect on survival (female superior to male, P = 0.01), but not on engraftment. There were high levels of variability among different cord units and among animals injected with the same cord unit. This variability may limit the clinical usefulness of the NOD--scid mice as hosts for the quantification of human stem cells