We present a constraint-based local search heuristic that contributes to solving the problem of generating contingency plans for air traffic flow and capacity management, which are to be used in the case of a catastrophic infrastructure failure within EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. Experiments with the heuristic, implemented in Comet, on real-world flig...

We present PPC (Plan Projection and Clustering), an algorithm that creates a plan hierarchy for case-based plan recognition systems. PPC is motivated by a desire to improve the response time of robots working in collaboration with humans. It projects the plans of a case base into a Euclidean space and iteratively clusters plans within that space, producing an abstraction hierarchy. Case retriev...

We review the work carried out in the X13 R&D Straight Section of the NSLS X-Ray Ring on small gap in-vacuum undulators (IVUNs). Then we discuss: (1) plans to replace the pure permanent magnet undulator in X13 by a hybrid design providing stronger magnetic fields, enhancing the tunability of the device; (2) plans to install hybrid IVUNs in the two RF straights of the X-Ray Ring, increasing the ...

Most contemporary database systems query optimizers exploit System-R’s bottom-up dynamic programming method (DP) to find the optimal query execution plan (QEP) without evaluating redundant subplans. The distinguished exceptions are Volcano/Cascades using transforms to generate new plans according to a topdown approach. As recent research has revealed, bottom-up dynamic programming can improve p...

Most contemporary database systems query optimizers exploit System-R’s dynamic programming method (DP) to find the optimal query execution plan (QEP) without evaluating redundant sub-plans. However, in the relational database setting today, large queries containing many joins are becoming increasingly common. Based on this trend, it has become temping to improve the DP performance. Chip Multi-P...

Double-aluminized kapton (DAK) is commonly used in multi-layer insulation blankets in cryogenic systems. NASA plans to use individual DAK sheets in lightweight deployable shields for satellites carrying instruments. A set of these shields will reflect away thermal radiation from the sun, the earth, and the instrument's warm side and allow the instrument's cold side to radiate its own heat to de...

Agents can use negotiation techniques to resolve conflicts over limited resources so that they can achieve their goals. The individual plans of agents provide the necessary information for discovering and resolving such conflicts. Conflicts can be avoided by reducing or eliminating interactions by localizing plan effects to particular agents and by merging/coordinating the individual plans of a...

Propositional plans of all forms often display a certain level of concurrency which can be exploited by scheduling the plan. This reveals the earliest times at which each action can be applied whilst still achieving the goal and shortening the plan duration. However, the output of this scheduling process is simply a set of timestamped actions, losing implicit information present in the original...

literature review indicates that systemic agricultural human resource development (hrd) interventions are rarely carried out in developing countries, and limited knowledge exists about how successful they have been. a comparative study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of three multi-project hrd interventions including extension plans, adaptation plans and diffusion-push plans in...

Bounded rationality prevents humans from tracing all action plans that could, in principle, be imagined. In the present paper, individuals' partly socially-shaped cognitive frames explain which action plans do gain attention. This provides the basis for a new entrepreneurial theory of the firm where `business conceptions,' which underlie any entrepreneurial venture, play a key role. Coordinatio...