This thesis deals with the take-up of social security benefits in Britain. It is well documented that not everyone who is entitled to benefits actually claims them. Nontake- up of benefits has been found to be a problem especially for benefits which are means-tested. So, throughout this thesis, we concentrate on Income Support, the main means-tested benefit in Britain. The latest official estimates on the extent of non-takeup (for 1993/94) suggest that up to 1.4 million persons are not receiving close to £1.7 billion of IS in spite of being entitled to it. The main question this thesis addresses IS what are the factors which determine whether an individual will or will not take-up their benefit entitlement? We consider the problem from an economic perspective by constructing suitable models set in both static and dynamic environments. These models provide some interesting insights about the nature of non-take-up. In tum, they also form the basis to a series of econometric models. Previous empirical evidence has shown that the entitlement level itself is one of the key determinants of whether or not an individual will take-up. In addition, it has long been recognized that - due to the complex nature of the benefit system - determining individual entitlements is, in many cases, error-prone with resulting benefit entitlements that are subject to measurement error. Hence, unlike any other studies thus far, we account for the presence of measurement error in the benefit entitlement when modelling the likelihood of take-up. Finally, we shed new light on the dynamics of take-up by using the information contained in our panel data set. In particular, we consider the effect claiming in the past has on the current decision to take-up and how future changes, expected or known with certainty, influence the decision to take-up or not

This paper presents a detailed error analysis of geometric hashing for 2D object recogition. We analytically derive the probability of false positives and negatives as a function of the number of model and image, features and occlusion, using a 2D Gaussian noise model. The results are presented in the form of ROC (receiver-operating characteristic) curves, which demonstrate that the 2D Gaussian error model always has better performance than that of the bounded uniform model. They also directly indicate the optimal performance that can be achieved for a given clutter and occlusion rate, and how to choose the thresholds to achieve these rates.

Alignment is a prevalent approach for recognizing 3D objects in 2D images. A major problem with current implementations is how to robustly handle errors that propagate from uncertainties in the locations of image features. This thesis gives a technique for bounding these errors. The technique makes use of a new solution to the problem of recovering 3D pose from three matching point pairs under weak-perspective projection. Furthermore, the error bounds are used to demonstrate that using line segments for features instead of points significantly reduces the false positive rate, to the extent that alignment can remain reliable even in cluttered scenes.

Building robust recognition systems requires a careful understanding of the effects of error in sensed features. Error in these image features results in a region of uncertainty in the possible image location of each additional model feature. We present an accurate, analytic approximation for this uncertainty region when model poses are based on matching three image and model points, for both Gaussian and bounded error in the detection of image points, and for both scaled-orthographic and perspective projection models. This result applies to objects that are fully three- dimensional, where past results considered only two-dimensional objects. Further, we introduce a linear programming algorithm to compute the uncertainty region when poses are based on any number of initial matches. Finally, we use these results to extend, from two-dimensional to three- dimensional objects, robust implementations of alignmentt interpretation- tree search, and ransformation clustering.

Many high-accuracy regional GPS continuously operating reference (CORS) networks have been established globally. These networks are used to facilitate better positioning services, such as high accuracy real-time positioning. GPSnet is the first state-wide CORS network in Australia. In order to maximize the benefits of the expensive CORS geospatial infrastructure, the state of Victoria in collaboration with three universities (RMIT University, the University of NSW and the University of Melbourne) embarked on research into regional atmospheric error modelling for Network-based RTK (NRTK) via an Australian Research Council project in early 2005. The core of the NRTK technique is the modelling of the spatially-correlated errors. The accuracy of the regional error model is a determining factor for the performance of NRTK positioning. In this research, a number of error models are examined and comprehensively analysed. Among them, the following three models are tested: 1) the Linear Interpolation Method (LIM); 2) the Distance-Based interpolation method (DIM); and 3) the Low-order surface model (LSM). The accuracy of the three models is evaluated using three different observation sessions and a variety of network configurations of GPSnet. Results show that the LIM and DIM can be used to significantly reduce the double-differenced (DD) residuals (up to 60% improvement), and the LIM is slightly better than the DIM (most at mm level). However the DD residuals with the LSM corrections are, in some cases, not only much worse than that of the LIM and DIM but also even must greater/worse than the DD residuals without any corrections applied at all. This indicates that there are no advantages by using the LSM for the error modelling for NRTK in GPSnet, even though it is the most commonly used method by researchers. The performance difference of the LIM for different GPSnet configurations is also tested. Results show that in most cases, the performance difference mainly caused by the number of reference stations used is not significant. This implies that more redundant reference stations may not contribute much to the accuracy improvement of the LIM. However, it may mitigate the station specific errors (if any). The magnitude of the temporal variations of both the tropospheric and ionospheric effects in GPSnet observations is also investigated. Test results suggest that the frequency of generating and transmitting the tropospheric corrections should not be significantly different from that for the ionospehric corrections. Thus 1Hz frequency (i.e. once every second) is recommended for the generation and transmission for both types of the atmospheric corrections for NRTK in GPSnet. The algorithms of the NRTK software package used are examined and extensive analyses are conducted. The performance and limitation of the NRTK system in terms of network ambiguity resolution are assessed. The methodology for generating virtual reference station (VRS) observations in the system is presented. The validation of the algorithms for the generated VRS observations is undertaken. It is expected that this research is significant for both the selection of regional error models and the implementation of the NRTK technique in GPSnet or in the Victorian region.

A necessidade de suportar serviços multimídia impulsiona o desenvolvimento das redes sem fio. Com isso, torna-se importante fornecer confiabilidade na transmissão de dados em um ambiente sujeito a variações espaciais, temporais e de freqüência, causadas por fenômenos físicos que, geralmente, causam erros nos dados transmitidos. Esses erros são basicamente de dois tipos: erros em rajada e erros aleatórios (Additive White Gaussian Noise - AWGN). Simular o comportamento dos canais sem fio afetados por erros é objeto de pesquisa há diversos anos. Entretanto, grande parte das pesquisas não considera a aplicação dos dois tipos de erros simultaneamente, o que pode gerar imprecisões nos resultados das simulações. Sendo assim, este trabalho propõe um injetor capaz de gerar tanto seqüências de erros em rajada quanto AWGN, além de propor um modelo de erros híbrido que considera a injeção de ambos os tipos de erros para simular o comportamento de um canal sem fio. O injetor de erros proposto é empregado em um estudo de caso referente à análise de desempenho do mecanismo de codificação de canal em redes que seguem o padrão IEEE 802.16, tanto nomádicas (fixas) quanto móveis. É avaliada a capacidade de correção dos codificadores Forward Error Correction (FEC), de emprego obrigatório de acordo com o referido padrão. Além disso, estuda-se o impacto causado pela aplicação de técnicas que consistem na adição de diversidade temporal à transmissão, em cenários cuja ocorrência dos erros é em rajada, e em cenários cujos erros são modelados de acordo com seqüências AWGN. Finalmente, realiza-se um estudo teórico sobre a vazão que pode ser atingida nos cenários nomádicos e móveis, além de uma discussão sobre os avanços tecnológicos trazidos pela multiplexação de canal baseada em Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), empregado em redes IEEE 802.16 móveis. / The demand for providing multimedia services is increasing the development of wireless networks. Therefore, an important issue is to guarantee correct transmissions over channels that are affected by time and frequency variant conditions caused by physical impairments that lead to the occurrence of errors during the transmission. These errors are basically of two types: burst errors and random errors, typically modeled as Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). Simulating the behavior of wireless channels affected by physical impairments has been subject of several investigations in the past years. Nevertheless, part of the current researches does not consider the occurrence of both errors at the same time. This approach may lead to imprecisions on the results obtained through simulations. This work proposea an error sequence generator which is able of generating both burst and AWGN error models. Moreover, the proposed model can generate hybrid errors sequences composed of both error types simultaneously. The proposed error sequence generator is applied to a case study that aims to evaluate the performance of the channel encoder of nomadic (fixed) and mobile IEEE 802.16 networks. In this context, we evaluate the error correction capability of FEC encoders which are mandatory according to IEEE 802.16 standard. Furthermore, we study the impact caused by the application of time diversity techniques on the transmission, considering scenarios affected by burst errors and AWGN. We also present a study about the theoretical throughput that can be reached by nomadic and mobile technologies. Finally, we discuss the technological advances brought by Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) channel multiplexing technique, which is employed in IEEE 802.16 mobile networks.

A necessidade de suportar serviços multimídia impulsiona o desenvolvimento das redes sem fio. Com isso, torna-se importante fornecer confiabilidade na transmissão de dados em um ambiente sujeito a variações espaciais, temporais e de freqüência, causadas por fenômenos físicos que, geralmente, causam erros nos dados transmitidos. Esses erros são basicamente de dois tipos: erros em rajada e erros aleatórios (Additive White Gaussian Noise - AWGN). Simular o comportamento dos canais sem fio afetados por erros é objeto de pesquisa há diversos anos. Entretanto, grande parte das pesquisas não considera a aplicação dos dois tipos de erros simultaneamente, o que pode gerar imprecisões nos resultados das simulações. Sendo assim, este trabalho propõe um injetor capaz de gerar tanto seqüências de erros em rajada quanto AWGN, além de propor um modelo de erros híbrido que considera a injeção de ambos os tipos de erros para simular o comportamento de um canal sem fio. O injetor de erros proposto é empregado em um estudo de caso referente à análise de desempenho do mecanismo de codificação de canal em redes que seguem o padrão IEEE 802.16, tanto nomádicas (fixas) quanto móveis. É avaliada a capacidade de correção dos codificadores Forward Error Correction (FEC), de emprego obrigatório de acordo com o referido padrão. Além disso, estuda-se o impacto causado pela aplicação de técnicas que consistem na adição de diversidade temporal à transmissão, em cenários cuja ocorrência dos erros é em rajada, e em cenários cujos erros são modelados de acordo com seqüências AWGN. Finalmente, realiza-se um estudo teórico sobre a vazão que pode ser atingida nos cenários nomádicos e móveis, além de uma discussão sobre os avanços tecnológicos trazidos pela multiplexação de canal baseada em Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), empregado em redes IEEE 802.16 móveis. / The demand for providing multimedia services is increasing the development of wireless networks. Therefore, an important issue is to guarantee correct transmissions over channels that are affected by time and frequency variant conditions caused by physical impairments that lead to the occurrence of errors during the transmission. These errors are basically of two types: burst errors and random errors, typically modeled as Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). Simulating the behavior of wireless channels affected by physical impairments has been subject of several investigations in the past years. Nevertheless, part of the current researches does not consider the occurrence of both errors at the same time. This approach may lead to imprecisions on the results obtained through simulations. This work proposea an error sequence generator which is able of generating both burst and AWGN error models. Moreover, the proposed model can generate hybrid errors sequences composed of both error types simultaneously. The proposed error sequence generator is applied to a case study that aims to evaluate the performance of the channel encoder of nomadic (fixed) and mobile IEEE 802.16 networks. In this context, we evaluate the error correction capability of FEC encoders which are mandatory according to IEEE 802.16 standard. Furthermore, we study the impact caused by the application of time diversity techniques on the transmission, considering scenarios affected by burst errors and AWGN. We also present a study about the theoretical throughput that can be reached by nomadic and mobile technologies. Finally, we discuss the technological advances brought by Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) channel multiplexing technique, which is employed in IEEE 802.16 mobile networks.

A necessidade de suportar serviços multimídia impulsiona o desenvolvimento das redes sem fio. Com isso, torna-se importante fornecer confiabilidade na transmissão de dados em um ambiente sujeito a variações espaciais, temporais e de freqüência, causadas por fenômenos físicos que, geralmente, causam erros nos dados transmitidos. Esses erros são basicamente de dois tipos: erros em rajada e erros aleatórios (Additive White Gaussian Noise - AWGN). Simular o comportamento dos canais sem fio afetados por erros é objeto de pesquisa há diversos anos. Entretanto, grande parte das pesquisas não considera a aplicação dos dois tipos de erros simultaneamente, o que pode gerar imprecisões nos resultados das simulações. Sendo assim, este trabalho propõe um injetor capaz de gerar tanto seqüências de erros em rajada quanto AWGN, além de propor um modelo de erros híbrido que considera a injeção de ambos os tipos de erros para simular o comportamento de um canal sem fio. O injetor de erros proposto é empregado em um estudo de caso referente à análise de desempenho do mecanismo de codificação de canal em redes que seguem o padrão IEEE 802.16, tanto nomádicas (fixas) quanto móveis. É avaliada a capacidade de correção dos codificadores Forward Error Correction (FEC), de emprego obrigatório de acordo com o referido padrão. Além disso, estuda-se o impacto causado pela aplicação de técnicas que consistem na adição de diversidade temporal à transmissão, em cenários cuja ocorrência dos erros é em rajada, e em cenários cujos erros são modelados de acordo com seqüências AWGN. Finalmente, realiza-se um estudo teórico sobre a vazão que pode ser atingida nos cenários nomádicos e móveis, além de uma discussão sobre os avanços tecnológicos trazidos pela multiplexação de canal baseada em Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), empregado em redes IEEE 802.16 móveis. / The demand for providing multimedia services is increasing the development of wireless networks. Therefore, an important issue is to guarantee correct transmissions over channels that are affected by time and frequency variant conditions caused by physical impairments that lead to the occurrence of errors during the transmission. These errors are basically of two types: burst errors and random errors, typically modeled as Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). Simulating the behavior of wireless channels affected by physical impairments has been subject of several investigations in the past years. Nevertheless, part of the current researches does not consider the occurrence of both errors at the same time. This approach may lead to imprecisions on the results obtained through simulations. This work proposea an error sequence generator which is able of generating both burst and AWGN error models. Moreover, the proposed model can generate hybrid errors sequences composed of both error types simultaneously. The proposed error sequence generator is applied to a case study that aims to evaluate the performance of the channel encoder of nomadic (fixed) and mobile IEEE 802.16 networks. In this context, we evaluate the error correction capability of FEC encoders which are mandatory according to IEEE 802.16 standard. Furthermore, we study the impact caused by the application of time diversity techniques on the transmission, considering scenarios affected by burst errors and AWGN. We also present a study about the theoretical throughput that can be reached by nomadic and mobile technologies. Finally, we discuss the technological advances brought by Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) channel multiplexing technique, which is employed in IEEE 802.16 mobile networks.

No description available.

[pt] O Planejamento da Operação Energética de Médio Prazo do Sistema Interligado Nacional (SIN) é um problema de decisão sob incerteza, com acoplamentos espacial e temporal. A solução vigente determina a política ótima através do algoritmo Programação Dinâmica Dual Estocástica (PDDE), onde a incerteza hidrológica é representada como um processo Periódico Autorregressivo (PAR). Para a aplicação do planejamento, uma restrição do modelo PAR é a possibilidade do mesmo simular valores negativos de afluência. A abordagem usada no modelo para que este gere apenas valores positivos criou uma relação de dependência entre os resíduos do modelo e as afluências passadas, em detrimento da premissa de independência temporal assumida pela PDDE. Neste contexto, o modelo Periódico Vetorial Autorregressivo com erro multiplicativo (PVARm) torna-se interessante para representação da incerteza das afluências, visto que, junto ao método de estimação adotado, garante as premissas da PDDE, além de incorporar a correlação espacial das afluências na própria formulação do modelo. Este trabalho apresenta o modelo PVARm aplicado à geração de cenários para atendimento do processo de otimização, a partir de dados do SIN. A estimação do modelo considera as mudanças de topologia das usinas ao longo do horizonte de planejamento e avalia dois critérios de identificação – ordem fixa unitária e ordem selecionada a partir da menor soma de erros de ajuste. Os cenários gerados são comparados aos cenários gerados pelo modelo que representa aquele vigente, o PAR. A comparação se baseia nos quesitos reprodução de estatísticas mensais e anuais e na adequação dos modelos, medida por testes de sequências. Os resultados mostraram que o PVARm de ordem unitária fixa apresentou comportamento satisfatório na maioria dos testes e motivou a continuidade dos estudos para aplicação no Planejamento da Operação Energética do SIN. / [en] The Medium-Term Energy Planning of the National Interconnected System (SIN) is a decision-making problem under uncertainty, coupled in space and time. The official solution uses the Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming (SDDP) algorithm, where uncertainty is represented as a Periodic Autoregressive (PAR) process. Specifically for the Planning application, the possibility of PAR simulates negative streamflow values is a limitation of the model. The approach used in PAR to solve this question creates a link between the current residual and the past streamflow in spite of the stochastic component stage-wise independency assumption of SDDP algorithm. In this context, the Periodic Vector Autoregressive model with multiplicative error (PVARm) becomes interesting for streamflow formulation, since it guarantees the PDDE assumptions, it can simulate only positive streamflow values, besides incorporating the spatial inflows correlation. This work presents the PVARm model applied to the simulation of scenarios to attend the optimization process, based on data from the SIN. The estimation of the model is considered as the topology change of the last decades for the planning and selection of two classification criteria - unit and alternative fixed order from the smallest sum of model errors of fit. The scenarios generated are compared to the scenarios generated by the model that represent the current one, the PAR. The comparison is based on the results of the monthly and annual statistics measurement and the adequacy of the models, as measured by sequence tests. The results were that the PVAR is of a type of test that was not implemented in most of the tests and motivated the continuity of the studies for the application in the Planning of the Energy Operation of the SIN.