Diploma thesis aims at cost drivers, cost classification and cost allocation. These issues are described with respect to traditional and modern approach and their comparison. In the thesis selected methods of cost estimation and modern methods of cost management are introduced as well. Following the theoretical part, application part focuses on cost analysis in particular company in order to find out cost drivers, to follow-up of cost management system and to give some suggestions, how to improve this area. The application part is not published because of content of restricted data.

Class of 2017 Abstract / Objectives: To determine the cost-effectiveness of proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors with high-intensity statins compared to high-intensity statins alone for the treatment of heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH). Methods: A Markov model was built through TreeAge Pro to model two groups: patients taking PCSK9 inhibitors with high-intensity statins or high-intensity statins alone. For each group, there were five health states that patients could be in: well, unstable angina, myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, or death. The data used in the model were extracted from published clinical trials evaluating PCSK9 inhibitors and statins. Results: For the primary analysis, the overall cost and effectiveness was $31,390.93 and 23.01 for the statin alone group and $362,798.50 and 24.32 for the PCSK9 with statin group, respectively. The incremental cost, incremental QALY, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was $331,407.60, 1.31 QALYs, and $252,833.60/QALY, respectively. Conclusions: Since the calculated ICER was higher than the pre-established threshold of $150,000, the results from our primary analysis suggest that treatment of patients with HeFH with a PCSK9 inhibitor and a high-intensity statin is not cost effective, compared to treatment with a high-intensity statin alone. However, when certain parameters (cost of PSCK9 and mortality rate) were adjusted in the secondary analyses, these agents appear to be cost-effective.

Environmental concern and the possibility of energy shortages have drawn attention to means for recovering material and energy resources from waste products. The focus of this thesis is on the application of cost-benefit analysis as a methodological technique for evaluating the economics of resource recovery: namely used lubrication oil. The study initially focuses on the general concern of the economics of resource recovery. This is undertaken primarily by a review of existing literature. An investigation of cost-benefit analysis as advanced by Pearce, Pearce and Dasgupta, Canadian Treasury Board Secretariat, Winch, Nath, Anderson, and Settle, to name a few, reveal a comprehensive and systematic framework for the evaluation of public investment alternatives. Items for inclusion in the analysis are all costs and benefits to every member of, a defined society whose welfare would be affected by the project if implemented. Many goods and services do not enter into the market system, causing difficulty in deriving monetary values for some of the components, especially environmental concerns. For example, the case study reveals two areas: 1) benefit of pollution abatement stemming from resource recovery of used lubrication oil, and 2) costs associated with the improper disposal of the waste products from the recycling process of used lubrication oil. An attempt is made to apply the cost-benefit framework to the case of lubrication oil recycling in the province of British Columbia. Adequate quantitative data were not available, particularly on the social costs and benefits, to fully employ the cost-benefit technique, therefore restricting the analysis in that only an identification of costs and benefits was prepared. When quantification of costs and benefits is not possible, a detailed description of the unquantifiable items indicates to the decision maker the extent of the components. Included in this study is a presentation of the environmental impacts of used oil disposal. The limitations of the cost-benefit analysis as an evaluation technique arise because of limited information and data needed to evaluate, in monetary terms, environmental improvement. Future research could involve a "simulation" of the market to determine a plausible shadow price that gives an indication of what the market price of the item would have been if it had been normally traded. A determination of the price that consumers would be willing to pay for the benefits of pollution control with the knowledge that some pollution would be produced by the recycling activity would aid the analyst in placing values on the costs and benefits. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Considerable attention has been devoted in the past to documenting the impact of prepaid group practices and community health centres on inpatient hospital utilization. The thesis develops and applies a methodology designed to allow estimation of the fiscal implications of such evidence. An equation relating average hospital inpatient costs to a number of explanatory variables is specified. The maximum likelihood estimation technique is employed in a time-series/cross-section analysis to determine parameter estimates for that equation over the period 1966-73. The variables are constructed from data deriving from eighty-seven British Columbia public general hospitals. Empirical results indicate the importance of case mix, average length of inpatient stay, rate of case flow and education-related hospital activities in explaining the variance across the eighty-seven hospitals in average cost per separation. The parameter estimates derived in the unit cost analysis are utilized in a comparative static determination of the implications for unit costs of changes in a hospital's case mix. The impact of case-specific case mix changes on unit (per separation) costs is determined, from which analysis case-specific marginal costs are derived. Finally, the marginal case costs are combined with utilization statistics from matched population studies involving community health centres or prepaid group practices. This allows determination of the expenditure implications of the utilization differentials reported in that literature. A subsequent extrapolative and conjectural analysis considers the cost implications of more widespread use of community health centres as a mode of medical care delivery in British Columbia. The conclusions suggest that the fiscal impact on the overall medical care budget in B.C. would be minimal in the absence of corresponding reductions in numbers of hospital beds. A number of other applications of the case cost derivation methodology are suggested. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Decreased fetal movement can indicate uncommon complication of labor; in response, we have developed a non-invasive, wearable monitoring tool to objectively assess fetal movement called the Babykick device. The novelty of this device is that it moves away from a traditional subjective assessment of fetal movement to an objective, quantitative measurement that remains low-cost. The designed tool refrains from utilizing expensive and less available monitoring modalities such as ultrasound imaging, Doppler velocimetry or cardiotocography. Instead, the wearable consists of a piezo-sensitive belt that is wirelessly connected to a phone or tablet. It can be used to record the frequency and amplitude of fetal movements perceived passively and non-invasively on the surface of the abdomen of the pregnant woman for a period of up to one hour while she is supine or seated in a reclined position. The ndings from the Babykick device will be correlated with those from subjective maternal assessment and the observation of the Research Coordinator during the test. This low-cost, non-invasive wearable belt could potentially reduce negative outcomes such as stillbirth, perinatal mortality and neonatal morbidity in low- to middle-income settings and is anticipated to be useful for long-term home monitoring. / Graduate

The diploma thesis discusses the study of creation of new logistics conception and its proposal for the company, Schaeffler Skalica, spol. s r. o., which is engaged in the production of bearings and components for the automotive industry. The proposal of the new logistics conception relates to the stocks of Schaeffler Skalica, spol. s r. o., which are stored in the consignment warehouse in Germany and are supplied by Chinese supplier.

Th purpose of this study is to present the essential factors affecting the cost of the school building program under the administration of the State Aid Program of 1947.

"No single element in urban planning outweighs in importance that of housing for the well being of the individual, the family and the community. Yet few questions in urban planning are as little understood, as subject to varying standards and as open to emotionally charged argument as that of what constitutes 'adequate' and 'inadequate' urban residential environments". Whilst housing presents a universal problem, it assumes special importance and significance for South Africa. In this country, Non-Whites constitute 81 per cent of the total population and the large majority of them, who fall within the lowest income groups, are unable to provide themselves with adequate housing. In Cape Town, the Non-White population consists largely of the Coloured group. Although Westernised and becoming increasingly urbanised, this group occupies a differentiated position, in the economic, social and political structure of Cape Town's society

Student Number : 0003370N - MSc dissertation - School of Civil and Environmental Engineering - Faculty of Engineering / This dissertation investigates the different design and construction considerations involved when building a masonry dome. A detailed shape investigation was undertaken in order to summarize the best shaped dome structures. General recommendations are given for the shapes that produce the least tension and the most useable space. The effects of openings, temperature loading and wind loading were considered and a finite element analysis of the final structure was undertaken. It was found that regions of high tension exist around openings, especially under temperature loading, and materials suitable to resisting this tension were investigated (fibre plaster, chicken wire mesh and wire wrapping around openings). The final structure was built using an inflatable formwork. The construction procedure was well documented and a study of alternative methods of construction is presented. This dissertation shows that a durable, architecturally and structurally efficient low-cost masonry dome can be built if proper attention is given to minimizing and resisting tension within the structure.

This dissertation consists of three chapters covering the following topics in firm value and volatility: valuation of agency cost, valuation of the underpricing in IPOs and the idiosyncratic volatility of public firms. In Chapter 1, I briefly introduce three topics studied in my dissertation. In addition, I summarized the stochastic frontier model which is employed in the study of valuation of agency cost and the underpricing in IPOs. In Chapter 2, I extend the agency cost literature multifold. First, by using the data of the 1,500 S&P Super Composite Index Constituents for 1994-2011, I estimate firm-level agency cost and the uncertainty in firm's maximum benchmark value, respectively, as the mean and variance of the inefficiency term conditional on the composed error. The estimation results reveal that, on average, a sample firm is around 18% and 15% below its optimal value for the period 1994-2006 and 2007-2011 respectively. The variances of the inefficiency term are 0.01 and 0.001 for two periods respectively. Second, using this measure of uncertainty, I construct the confidence interval for the agency cost of each firm. Third, a new concept called Coefficient of Uncertainty of Market Value due to the principal-agent problem (CUMV) is defined and calculated, which measures uncertainty in the benchmark value per unit of agency cost. Finally, I decompose the change in market value of a firm into three components, i.e. change due to agency cost; change due to operational efficiency, and change due to the evaluation of the whole market (called the market effect). I find that the reduction of agency cost and the expansion of the whole market do contribute to firm growth, but the majority of the growth for the sample firms is explained by the improvement of firms' operational efficiency. In chapter 3, I estimate the magnitude of the underpricing of the initial public offering (IPO) for 338 firms during 2001-2010 under the framework of Stochastic Frontier Approach. The magnitude of the underpricing in IPOs and the uncertainty in IPOs' maximum benchmark value are estimated as the mean and variance of the inefficiency term conditional on the composed error respectively. I note that the new issues of a firm with initial offering in US between 2001 and 2010, on average, fall short of 22.9% of their optimal value with a variance of 0.63. As an extension of existing literature, I do not only estimate the frontier model, but investigate the determinants of the underpricing of the IPOs. The estimation results support the fact that the underpricing would be lower if the firms have more reputable underwriters, more insider ownership and higher age at the time of offering new issues. Finally, I introduce a new concept, the Coefficient of Uncertainty of Firm Value due to the underpricing in the IPOs (CUV), which reports the firm value uncertainty for each unit of the underpricing in IPOs. I observe that, on average, the CUV is 4.21 for a sample firm, which implies that firm's uncertainty is indeed sensitive to the underpricing in IPOs. In chapter 4, I investigate the idiosyncratic volatility and its relation to executive ownership during 1992 to 2011. The ownership of executives is employed as the proxy for the behavior of executives to study how executives influence firms' idiosyncratic volatility. Inconsistent with the previous literature, I don't find upward trend of the aggregated idiosyncratic volatility during 1992 to 2011. Instead, I observe that the aggregated idiosyncratic volatility exhibits indeterministic pattern during this period. Moreover, I also note that the reverts of aggregated idiosyncratic volatility occur at a time of the US stock market crash in 2000 and the period of most recent recession (2008-2009). The most interesting finding of this study is that although the idiosyncratic volatility increases in executives' ownership, the idiosyncratic volatility's growth rate is not always positive related with executives' ownership. In Chapter 5, I conclude this dissertation.