This thesis has improved Baltazar's methodology for potential energy savings estimation from retro-commissioning/retrofits measures. Important improvements and discussions are made on optimization parameters, limits on optimization parameter values, minimum airflow setting for VAV systems, space load calculation, simulation of buildings with more than one type of system, AHU shutdown simulation, and air-side simulation models. A prototype computer tool called the Potential Energy Savings Estimation (PESE) Toolkit is developed to implement the improved methodology and used for testing. The implemented methodology is tested in two retro-commissioned on-campus buildings with hourly measured consumption data. In the Sanders Corps of Cadets Center, the optimized profiles of parameter settings in single parameter optimizations can be explained with engineering principles. It reveals that the improved methodology is implemented correctly in the tool. The case study on the Coke Building shows that the improved methodology can be used in buildings with more than one system type. The methodology is then used to estimate annual potential energy cost savings for 14 office buildings in Austin, TX with very limited information and utility bills. The methodology has predicted an average total potential savings of 36% for SDVAV systems with electric terminal reheat, 22% for SDVAV systems with hot water reheat, and 25% for DDVAV systems. The estimations are compared with savings predicted in the Continuous Commissioning assessment report. The results show it may be helpful to study the correlation by using generalized factors of assessment predicted energy cost savings to estimated potential energy cost savings. The factors identified in this application are 0.68, 0.66, and 0.61 for each type of system. It is noted that one should be cautious in quoting these factors in future projects. In the future, it would be valuable to study the correlation between measured savings and estimated potential savings in a large number of buildings with retrocommissioning measures implemented. Additionally, further testing and modifications on the PESE Toolkit are necessary to make it a reliable software tool.

Background: Dementia leads to progressive cognitive and functional decline. Population aging is a concern, and the healthcare system must refocus its limited resources to keep up with service demands. Three cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) – donepezil, galantamine and rivastigmine – have been approved for the treatment of dementia and are covered under Ontario’s formulary plan, but there has been little research regarding their economic impact. Methods: The purpose of this study was to describe the patterns of use of ChEIs, and to assess associated health resource utilization and costs to Ontario’s healthcare system. Anonymized patient-level data from seven provincial administrative databases were linked at the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences at Queen’s University. First-time users of ChEIs aged 66 years and older were identified between April 1st, 2004 and March 31st, 2009, and were followed until treatment discontinuation or up to one year following their index date. Health resource use was classified into six care categories: prescription drugs, physicians, long-term care, home care nursing, emergency department, and hospitalizations. Chi-square, Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA and linear regression were employed to compare resource use between users of the three ChEIs. Results: In the cohort (N=40,057), the majority were prescribed donepezil (n=24,347), were female (60.5%) and had at least one other co-morbid disease. The odds of discontinuation were 1.47 (1.36, 1.60) and 1.26 (1.17, 136), higher for rivastigmine users than galantamine and donepezil users, respectively. Between 2005 and 2008, overall healthcare costs increased from $95.2 million to $106.1 million. Prescription drugs comprised 33% of all healthcare costs. ChEIs accounted for half of all prescription drug costs. Overall mean annual healthcare system cost per patient was $12,679.47 ($12,510.86, $12,848.08). Predictors of overall healthcare costs included long-term care, co-morbidity status, hospitalization and hip fractures. Conclusions: Prescription drugs account for a substantial proportion of healthcare costs for patients with dementia, and the amount attributable to ChEIs alone is significant. Knowing the health service utilization patterns for dementia patients can help healthcare professionals and decision-makers plan patient care and timely resource allocation. The results stress the utility of administrative databases and the need for further research for this disease. / Thesis (Master, Community Health & Epidemiology) -- Queen's University, 2011-11-01 15:49:58.417

Algorithmic mechanism design deals with efficiently-computable algorithmic constructions in the presence of strategic players who hold the inputs to the problem and may misreport their input if doing so benefits them. Algorithmic mechanism design finds applications in a variety of internet settings such as resource allocation, facility location and e-commerce, such as sponsored search auctions. There is an extensive amount of work in algorithmic mechanism design on packing problems such as single-item auctions, multi-unit auctions and combinatorial auctions. But, surprisingly, covering problems, also called procurement auctions, have almost been completely unexplored, especially in the multidimensional setting. In this thesis, we systematically investigate multidimensional covering mechanism- design problems, wherein there are m items that need to be covered and n players who provide covering objects, with each player i having a private cost for the covering objects he provides. A feasible solution to the covering problem is a collection of covering objects (obtained from the various players) that together cover all items. Two widely considered objectives in mechanism design are: (i) cost-minimization (CM) which aims to minimize the total cost incurred by the players and the mechanism designer; and (ii) payment minimization (PayM), which aims to minimize the payment to players. Covering mechanism design problems turn out to behave quite differently from packing mechanism design problems. In particular, various techniques utilized successfully for packing problems do not perform well for covering mechanism design problems, and this necessitates new approaches and solution concepts. In this thesis we devise various techniques for handling covering mechanism design problems, which yield a variety of results for both the CM and PayM objectives. In our investigation of the CM objective, we focus on two representative covering problems: uncapacitated facility location (UFL) and vertex cover. For multi-dimensional UFL, we give a black-box method to transform any Lagrangian-multiplier-preserving ??-approximation algorithm for UFL into a truthful-in-expectation, ??-approximation mechanism. This yields the first result for multi-dimensional UFL, namely a truthful-in-expectation 2-approximation mechanism. For multi-dimensional VCP (Multi-VCP), we develop a decomposition method that reduces the mechanism-design problem into the simpler task of constructing threshold mechanisms, which are a restricted class of truthful mechanisms, for simpler (in terms of graph structure or problem dimension) instances of Multi-VCP. By suitably designing the decomposition and the threshold mechanisms it uses as building blocks, we obtain truthful mechanisms with approximation ratios (n is the number of nodes): (1) O(r2 log n) for r-dimensional VCP; and (2) O(r log n) for r-dimensional VCP on any proper minor-closed family of graphs (which improves to O(log n) if no two neighbors of a node belong to the same player). These are the first truthful mechanisms for Multi-VCP with non-trivial approximation guarantees. For the PayM objective, we work in the oft-used Bayesian setting, where players??? types are drawn from an underlying distribution and may be correlated, and the goal is to minimize the expected total payment made by the mechanism. We consider the problem of designing incentive compatible, ex-post individually rational (IR) mechanisms for covering problems in the above model. The standard notion of incentive compatibility (IC) in such settings is Bayesian incentive compatibility (BIC), but this notion is over-reliant on having precise knowledge of the underlying distribution, which makes it a rather non- robust notion. We formulate a notion of IC that we call robust Bayesian IC (robust BIC) that is substantially more robust than BIC, and develop black-box reductions from robust BIC-mechanism design to algorithm design. This black-box reduction applies to single- dimensional settings even when we only have an LP-relative approximation algorithm for the algorithmic problem. We obtain near-optimal mechanisms for various covering settings including single- and multi-item procurement auctions, various single-dimensional covering problems, and multidimensional facility location problems. Finally, we study the notion of frugality, which considers the PayM objective but in a worst-case setting, where one does not have prior information about the players??? types. We show that some of our mechanisms developed for the CM objective are also good with respect to certain oft-used frugality benchmarks proposed in the literature. We also introduce an alternate benchmark for frugality, which more directly reflects the goal that the mechanism???s payment be close to the best possible payment, and obtain some preliminary results with respect to this benchmark.

Orientador: Helenice de Oliveira Florentino Silva / Banca: Adriana Cristina C.Nicola / Banca: Antonio Roberto Balbo / Resumo: A cana-de-açúcar possui grande importância social e econômica para o brasileiro. O Brasil é maior produtor de cana-de-açúcar do mundo, na safra de 2009/2010 a produção foi de 597,8 milhões de toneladas, uma alta de 4,4% em relação às 571,40 milhões de toneladas colhidas em 2008/2009. O país possui 420 Usinas e Destilarias, as quais movimentam cerca de 51 bilhões de reais, o que representa 1,5% do PIB Brasileiro, gerando 4,5 milhões de empregos diretos e indiretos, exportando 23,2 milhões toneladas de açúcar e 3,3 bilhões de litros de etanol, e um investimento médio no país de 6 bilhões de reais ao ano, o que mostra a grande importância da cana-de-açúcar para a economia brasileira. Por outro lado, o crescimento acelerado deste setor tem trazido problemas de grandes dimensões e dificultado o gerenciamento das empresas, estes problemas são de ordens estruturais e ambientais. Por isso é importante conhecer todo processo de cultivo da cana, que vai desde o preparo do solo até processo industrial, que ocorre da recepção da cana até a saída dos produtos, e buscar formas de minimizar os custos de produção. Assim, surge a necessidade de ferramentas que auxiliem os gestores das empresas nas tomadas de decisões. Desta forma, a modelagem matemática pode ser utilizada como uma importante fonte de produção de estimativas para este setor, facilitando cálculos e auxiliando as decisões. O objetivo deste trabalho foi estudar toda a cadeia produtiva de álcool e açúcar e investigar modelos matemáticos para estimar quantitativamente o balanço de energia e o custo de produção, considerando todo o processo de produção de álcool e açúcar, deste o plantio da cana, até a venda destes produtos / Abstract: The sugarcane has great social and economic importance for the Brazilian. Brazil is the largest producer of sugarcane in the world, in 2009/2010 crop production was 597.8 million tons, up 4.4% compared to 571.40 million tonnes harvested in 2008 / 2009. That season the country had 420 mills and distilleries, which handle about 51 billion reais, representing 1.5% of Brazilian GDP, generating 4.5 million direct and indirect jobs, exporting 23.2 million tonnes of sugar and 3.3 billion liters of ethanol, generating an average investment in the country of 6 billion reais a year, which shows the great importance of sugarcane to the Brazilian economy. The accelerated growth of this sector has brought large problems and complicating the management of enterprises these problems are structural and environmental. Therefore it is important to know the whole process of sugar cane cultivation, ranging from soil preparation until industrial process, which occurs in the reception of the cane to the output of products, and seek ways to minimize production costs. Thus it, arises the need for tools that help business managers in making decisions. Thus, mathematical modeling can be used as an important source to estimates the production for this sector, making calculations and aiding decisions. The objective of this work was to study the entire production chain of sugar and alcohol and to investigate mathematical models to quantitatively estimate the cost of production, considering the whole process of producing alcohol and sugar cane, since the plantation until the sale of these products / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-09-09Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:11:13Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ramos_rp_me_botfca.pdf: 642292 bytes, checksum: d9987af9a9875bd8567fdb537dd98da8 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / A cana-de-açúcar possui grande importância social e econômica para o brasileiro. O Brasil é maior produtor de cana-de-açúcar do mundo, na safra de 2009/2010 a produção foi de 597,8 milhões de toneladas, uma alta de 4,4% em relação às 571,40 milhões de toneladas colhidas em 2008/2009. O país possui 420 Usinas e Destilarias, as quais movimentam cerca de 51 bilhões de reais, o que representa 1,5% do PIB Brasileiro, gerando 4,5 milhões de empregos diretos e indiretos, exportando 23,2 milhões toneladas de açúcar e 3,3 bilhões de litros de etanol, e um investimento médio no país de 6 bilhões de reais ao ano, o que mostra a grande importância da cana-de-açúcar para a economia brasileira. Por outro lado, o crescimento acelerado deste setor tem trazido problemas de grandes dimensões e dificultado o gerenciamento das empresas, estes problemas são de ordens estruturais e ambientais. Por isso é importante conhecer todo processo de cultivo da cana, que vai desde o preparo do solo até processo industrial, que ocorre da recepção da cana até a saída dos produtos, e buscar formas de minimizar os custos de produção. Assim, surge a necessidade de ferramentas que auxiliem os gestores das empresas nas tomadas de decisões. Desta forma, a modelagem matemática pode ser utilizada como uma importante fonte de produção de estimativas para este setor, facilitando cálculos e auxiliando as decisões. O objetivo deste trabalho foi estudar toda a cadeia produtiva de álcool e açúcar e investigar modelos matemáticos para estimar quantitativamente o balanço de energia e o custo de produção, considerando todo o processo de produção de álcool e açúcar, deste o plantio da cana, até a venda destes produtos / The sugarcane has great social and economic importance for the Brazilian. Brazil is the largest producer of sugarcane in the world, in 2009/2010 crop production was 597.8 million tons, up 4.4% compared to 571.40 million tonnes harvested in 2008 / 2009. That season the country had 420 mills and distilleries, which handle about 51 billion reais, representing 1.5% of Brazilian GDP, generating 4.5 million direct and indirect jobs, exporting 23.2 million tonnes of sugar and 3.3 billion liters of ethanol, generating an average investment in the country of 6 billion reais a year, which shows the great importance of sugarcane to the Brazilian economy. The accelerated growth of this sector has brought large problems and complicating the management of enterprises these problems are structural and environmental. Therefore it is important to know the whole process of sugar cane cultivation, ranging from soil preparation until industrial process, which occurs in the reception of the cane to the output of products, and seek ways to minimize production costs. Thus it, arises the need for tools that help business managers in making decisions. Thus, mathematical modeling can be used as an important source to estimates the production for this sector, making calculations and aiding decisions. The objective of this work was to study the entire production chain of sugar and alcohol and to investigate mathematical models to quantitatively estimate the cost of production, considering the whole process of producing alcohol and sugar cane, since the plantation until the sale of these products

This work deals with the possibilities of employing a genetic algorithm to edge detection. There is introduced a project which uses enhanced image divided into sub-regions, on which detection by genetic algorithm is applied. To achieving our goals are used individuals in two-dimensional bit arrays, for which are specially adjusted mutation and crossover operators. Cost minimization approach is used as fitness function. The project was created and tested in Matlab environment.

Detekce objektů v počítačovém vidění je složítá úloha. Velmi populární a rozšířená metoda pro detekci je využití statistických klasifikátorů a skenovacích oken. Pro učení kalsifikátorů se často používá algoritmus AdaBoost (nebo jeho modifikace), protože dosahuje vysoké úspěšnosti detekce, nízkého počtu chybných detekcí a je vhodný pro detekci v reálném čase. Implementaci detekce objektů je možné provést různými způsoby a lze využít vlastnosti konkrétní architektury, pro urychlení detekce. Pro akceleraci je možné využít grafické procesory, vícejádrové architektury, SIMD instrukce, nebo programovatelný hardware. Tato práce představuje metodu optimalizace, která vylepšuje výkon detekce objektů s ohledem na cenovou funkci zadanou uživatelem. Metoda rozděluje předem natrénovaný klasifikátor do několika různých implementací, tak aby celková cena klasifikace byla minimalizována. Metoda je verifikována na základním experimentu, kdy je klasifikátor rozdělen do předzpracovací jednotku v FPGA a do jednotky ve standardním PC.

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Artificial Intelligence has recently attracted attention due to its rapid advancement in various industries such as the healthcare and finance industry. The intersection between AI and entrepreneurship is still being studied, and this study explores the impact of AI-tools on startups, with a focus on Swedish startups. The study explores the utilization of AI- tools to optimize their operations or capture new opportunities. It also examines their alignment to The Lean Startup Development, designed to help entrepreneurs to navigate through challenges they face when launching a product or a service. The primary contribution is of qualitative nature, using semi-structured interviews with individuals from startups implementing AI-technologies. Interpretation of the data is done through thematic analysis, which involves identifying themes and core categories.  The startups use the AI-tools for strategic internal planning and operations. The findings suggest that the AI- tools are commonly used to minimize costs, automate certain tasks, saving time to focus more on complex tasks and thereby enhancing efficiency which gradually leads to strengthened competitiveness. Interestingly, the participating startups show a consideration for ethical risks making more careful decisions on the information provided by the AI-tools.

Objetivo: Comparar as relações de custo-efetividade de duas terapias, Imunoglubulina Intravenosa (IgIV) e Plasmaferese (PE), no tratamento da Síndrome de Guillain-Barré sob a perspectiva do sistema público (SUS). O objetivo secundário foi avaliar a adesão às recomendações da Comissão de Medicamentos do HCPA Métodos: estudo transversal com análise econômica de pacientes tratados por Síndrome de Guillain-Barré no período de junho de 2003 a junho de 2008 no Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA). Foi realizada análise de custo-efetividade do emprego de IgIV e de PE nestes pacientes, pelo método de minimização de custos, considerando-se somente os custos diretos sanitários, fornecidos pelo sistema gerencial da instituição . Foram excluídos os pacientes que usaram outro tipo de tratamento associado ou isolado. Coletaram-se os dados através da revisão dos prontuários. A gravidade da doença na internação foi classificada como: doença leve, quando caminhar foi possível; doença moderada, quando caminhar foi impossível; doença grave, quando os pacientes necessitaram de ventilação assistida. A incapacidade na alta foi estabelecida pela escala de sete pontos de Hughes. A adesão às recomendações da Comissão de Medicamentos do HCPA, objetivo secundário, foi avaliada através da dose e o esquema de prescrição da IgIV. Resultados: Vinte e cinco participantes (2 a 70 anos) foram incluídos no estudo, cinco tratados com PE, empregando-se Albumina Humana como substituto do plasma, e 20 tratados com IgIV. O custo total do tratamento de um paciente com PE foi R$10.603,88 (± 2.978,12) e o de um que recebeu IgIV foi R$ 32.103,00 (± 21.454,24). O custo total da internação foi de R$45.027,14 (± 32.750,45) para os tratados com PE e de R$ 60.844,28 (±48.590,52) para os que receberam IgIV. Em relação ao desfecho clínico principal, melhora na escala de incapacidade de sete pontos, após o tratamento com uma das alternativas escolhida, a mediana dos pacientes que internaram com grau de gravidade 3 e que foram tratados com PE foi igual a dos que receberam IgIV. Em relação à permanência hospitalar, permanência em UTI e dias de Ventilação Mecânica, não houve diferença estatisticamente significativa entre os dois tratamentos. Conclusões: Quando comparados os custos médios das duas opções terapêuticas, uma delas aparece claramente com menor custo. Quando comparados os desfechos, após o emprego de cada opção terapêutica, estes não revelam diferença. Concluímos que, no HCPA, a opção pelo procedimento Plasmaferese é mais custo efetiva do que o emprego da IgIV. / Objectives: To compare the cost-effectiveness of two distinct therapies, Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIg) and Plasma Exchange (PE) in the treatment of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, concerning the public health care system. Compliance to the guidelines of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee of the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre was a secondary objective. Methods: A cross-sectional, economical analysis was conducted, including patients treated for GBS in the period from June, 2003 through June, 2008 in Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA). The cost-effectiveness of the use of IVIg and PE in such patients was studied through the cost minimization method, considering direct medical costs only (2008 currency), yield by the management of the institution. Patients receiving treatments other than PE or IVIg were excluded. Data were collected by chart reviews. Severity of disease on admittance was classified as follows: mild disease, when the patient was able to walk; moderate disease, when the patient was unable to walk, and severe disease, when assisted ventilation was required. Disability on discharge was established by the 7-point scale of Hughes. Compliance to the guidelines of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee was evaluated through the dose and prescription scheme of IVIg. Results: Twenty-five participants (2 to 70 years of age) were included in the study, 5 were submitted to treatment with PE, using human albumin as replacement for plasma, and 20 were treated with IVIg. The total treatment cost for PE in a single patient was US$6,058.85 (±1,701.78 SD), and the same expense for IVIg was US$18,344.57 (± 12,259.56 SD) (p = 0.035). Total inpatient cost was US$25,729.79 (± 18,714.54 SD) in the PE group, and US$34,768.16 (±27,766.01 SD) (p=0.530) in the IVIg group. The main clinical outcome was improvement in the 7-point disability grade scale. The median of that measure in patients admitted with a severity grade 3 treated either with PE and IVIg was the same. Secondary outcomes, such as in-hospital stay, ICU stay, and number of days on mechanical ventilation revealed no statistically significant difference between treatments. Conclusions: As the mean expenses of both therapeutic options are compared, one clearly stands-out as less onerous. Clinical outcomes, when compared, reveal no statistical difference after each treatment. We concluded that, in HCPA, plasma exchange is more cost-effective than intravenous immunoglobulin.