Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Kansas, 1973. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

In the screening and concept selection stages of gas storage projects, many estimates are required to value competing projects and development concepts. These estimates are important because they influence which projects are selected and which concept proceeds into detailed engineering. In most cases, there is uncertainty in all of the estimates. As a result, operators are faced with the complex problem of determining the optimal design. A systematic uncertainty analysis can help operators solve this problem and make better decisions. Ideally, the uncertainty analysis is comprehensive and includes all uncertain variables, and simultaneously accounts for reservoir behavior, facility options, and economic objectives. This thesis proposes and demonstrates a workflow and an integrated optimization model for uncertainty analysis in gas storage. The optimization model is fast-solving and eliminates most constraints on the scope of the uncertainty analysis. Using this or similar workflows and models should facilitate analysis and communication of results within the project team and with other stakeholders. / text

The use of Standards to reduce the complexity of Health Facilities Design has become an indispensable and integral part of the planning process. Unfortunately the structure of present Standards is inflexible, and while this structure may have been acceptable in the past, the standards it produces have become ineffective. Such Standards have been unable to adapt to the changing attitudes and needs of the planning participants who respond to the societal changes around them. It is our objective to develop a method which can build better Standards. In the first chapter we examine the structural problems of Standards and find that there is a fundamental difference between the positive purpose of Standards as used by hospitals and planners and the restrictive purposes of Standards used by government. We have used the terms Guidelines and Standards to denote these different contexts. Having established that a good Standard is one which is similar to a Guideline, we then explore an alternative structure developed at Berkeley, California, called a "Pattern" which we observe will satisfy the requirements for "good" Standards. Since Pattern formats are admirably suited to developing societally-responsive Guidelines and Standards we evolve a method to assemble these new Standards. This method is based upon the Delphi Technique. It uses the technique's inherent advantages to establish communication between two groups of experts (Planners and Medical) who then interact to explore problems and solutions in planning Newborn Nurseries and Neonatal Intensive Care Units. The methodology which is described in Chapter 2 uses the classical components of a Policy Delphi with three rounds of questionnaires sent to Medical Experts (Physicians and Nurses) in various parts of British Columbia and Alberta. It adds such variations as the including of input from the Planner Experts as one method for the feed back of information. This special Delphi design anticipates effects from independent variables and builds in compensatory steps. One of the steps included is a Mini-Survey of a larger group of potential participants, to evaluate the Patterns resulting from the Delphi Study. This larger group was sixteen hospitals in British Columbia and ten hospitals in Alberta. Chapter 3 describes the details in carrying out the three questioning rounds of this modified Delphi method, and its success in assisting the production of a series of Nursery Patterns which are usable as Guidelines. In the methodology is the inherent capability for retaining flexibility, and there are a series of process adjustments that occur. Evaluation of the method in Chapter 4 shows that despite weaknesses, both anticipated and unanticipated, the results provide an important starting point that helps create better, more usable Standards. Possible future developments are briefly mentioned in the hope that evaluation and change will occur as the planning environment changes about us. / Medicine, Faculty of / Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of / Graduate

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

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Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2002. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Objective: The primary objective of the thesis is to advance proactive thinking in designing healthcare facilities for safety by constructing theory to bridge gaps between evidence-based design (EBD) and human factors/ergonomics (HF/E). Background: Adverse events are a pervasive issue in healthcare, with causes and prevention measures under increased scrutiny for the past 15 years. The physical environment can be an underlying condition of safety and healthcare (HC) facility design can be seen as a layer of defense in accident causation theory. However, HC facility design is complicated and complex, and the implications of decisions can be felt for decades. While architects excel at problem solving, they are not fully versed in healthcare work tasks, flow, and function, resulting in complex system interactions. Evidence-based design (EBD) is a process that uses research as a foundation for decision-making in HC facility design. While the EBD process acknowledges the importance of system factors, its focus is on understanding specific facility design interventions on outcomes such as safety, efficiency, quality of care, and satisfaction. HF/E focuses on humans interacting with a system with a goal of optimizing human well-being and overall system performance. Although HF/E recognizes the physical environment as a system component, the ergonomic definition of the environment lacks clarity and influences are frequently considered at a microergonomic level. In summary, EBD supports desired outcomes of a system through building design, while HF/E more often supports desired outcomes of the system through work design. Methods: The thesis leverages a grant to create a Safety Risk Assessment (SRA) toolkit for HC facility design using: (1) consensus-based methods to develop built-environment considerations for falls in HC facility design, (2) a mixed methods approach to test the SRA in hypothetical scenarios, (3) a mixed methods approach to test the SRA in real-world scenarios, (4) quantitative and qualitative analysis using an inductive and abductive approach to construct grounded theory to develop a core theme and a theoretical framework for proactively considering safety in HC facility design, (5) an extended systematic literature review to identify additional system considerations of the organization and people, and (6) established thinking to advance new theoretical frameworks to achieve the thesis objectives. Results: Two theoretical frameworks are proposed. The first framework, Safety as Complexity of the Organization, People and Environment (SCOPE) is based on the Dial-F systems model (Hignett 2013). The evolution includes: the definition of the ergonomic environment using building design as the most stable element of the system, identifying built environment interventions to mitigate the risk of falls (SCOPE 1.0); the addition of non-building design interventions of the system such as organizational and people-based conditions (SCOPE 2.0); and the integration of HF/E design principles to reframe thinking about hospital falls (DEEP SCOPE). The second framework evolves from grounded theory constructed through data from SRA testing proposing safe design as a participatory process to anticipate, participate, and integrate solutions. A participatory ergonomics framework (Haines and Wilson 1998) is integrated with a mesoergonomic framework of inquiry (Karsh, Waterson, and Holden 2014, Karsh 2006) to advance a theoretical framework of participatory mesoergonomics using the SRA and SCOPE content as inputs over the course of a HC facility design project to achieve safety. Conclusion: The gap between EBD and HF/E can be bridged using safety (falls) as a proactive consideration during HC facility design using theoretical frameworks. These frameworks address (1) the definition of building design and design considerations in the HF/E context and (2) integration of the EBD process with HF/E methods to understand interactions of the system.

No / The influence of loose plant leaves on the acoustic absorption of a porous substrate is experimentally and numerically studied. Such systems are typical in vegetative walls, where the substrate has strong acoustical absorbing properties. Both experiments in an impedance tube and theoretical predictions show that when a leaf is placed in front of such a porous substrate, its absorption characteristics markedly change (for normal incident sound). Typically, there is an unaffected change in the low frequency absorption coefficient (below 250 Hz), an increase in the middle frequency absorption coefficient (500-2000 Hz) and a decrease in the absorption at higher frequencies. The influence of leaves becomes most pronounced when the substrate has a low mass density. A combination of the Biot's elastic frame porous model, viscous damping in the leaf boundary layers and plate vibration theory is implemented via a finite-difference time-domain model, which is able to predict accurately the absorption spectrum of a leaf above a porous substrate system. The change in the absorption spectrum caused by the leaf vibration can be modeled reasonably well assuming the leaf and porous substrate properties are uniform.