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The Surgical Scheduler's Game is a management game structured within the surgical department of a hospital. It is designed to introduce participants to the scheduling function of the surgical service and is based upon surgical data collected on over 4,000 patients. The participant assumes the position of a surgical scheduler in a 400 bed hospital with five operating rooms. For each operation to be scheduled, the participant receives the name of the surgeon placing the scheduling request, the pre-operative procedure name, the patient's age and the date and time requested. The participant must then schedule the patient. He has available an estimate of the duration of different operations based upon historical records. Other actions required of the participant are to schedule modifications generated through cancellation and rescheduling requests. At the completion of each game period (one day), the participant receives a performance report. This report includes both a measure of scheduling effectiveness and cost of the service that had been performed. In addition, a comparison is made between the best possible schedule for each day and the schedule developed by the participant. The financial report includes fixed, variable and overtime operating room costs, surgeon and patient delay costs, rescheduling costs, and income from operations. The game is set within a probabilistic environment and includes an adaptive learning feature which makes the scheduling requirements more difficulty as the participant reaches certain levels of proficiency. / Ph. D.

The director Wong Kar-wai has been widely recognized as a key figure in contemporary Hong Kong cinema. His films have been seen through a number of critical lenses: as auteurist artworks (Brunette, 2005); as creative popular cinema (Bordwell, 2000); as highly political texts responding directly to the 1997 handover (Stokes and Hoover, 1999). Rather than focusing on an aesthetic, technical or political (in a narrow sense) interpretation, this thesis, using the approach of textual and contextual analysis, seeks to bring Wong's films into dialogue with contemporary cultural theories about the nature of space, mobility, gender and nostalgia. In this way I hope both to re-position the films within the cultural context to which and of which they speak, and to show the ways in which they also speak to contemporary cultural concerns which far exceed it. Thus my argument is that these are globally significant films because of the paradigmatic nature of the specific Hong Kong culture which they explore, a culture which embodies in heightened form characteristics seen as typifying modern urban experience. In light of Bhabha's theories of post-colonial culture (1994), Abbas' suggestion of Hong Kong culture as indefinable “postculture” (1997), and Rey Chow's analysis of Hong Kong's post-colonial self-writing (1998), this thesis seeks to show how a marginal culture not only survives, but also creates a speaking position for today's global culture through Wong's cinema. The thesis is structured around three major themes, those of mobility, gender construction and nostalgia, all of which are both regionally specific concerns and global issues. Today, we see the dual trends of nationalism and globalization; the former brings exclusivity and the latter brings homogeneity. Wong's films displays the creativity of Hong Kong's post-colonial culture, whose hybridity and ambivalence defy these conservative trends and shed light on the future of global culture.

A statistical test is called"robust" if it is insensitive to departures from the underlying assumptions, this term was introduced by Box (4). Theoretical study made by Gayen (13), (14) and (15) showed that"Student's" t-test and the closely related F-test of analysis of variance are insensitive to departures from normality. But the F-test on the equality of two variances is very sensitive to such departures. Empirical studies made by Norton (19) and Boneau (3) agree with Gayen's theoretical conclusions. Norton studied the effect of non-normality on the F-test of analysis of variance,and showed that the form of the sampled population had very little effect on this test. For example, for the case of three groups of sample sizes 3, for the 5% level, the percentages exceeding the theoretical limits were 7.83 and 4.77% respectively for sampling from a leptokurtic and an extremely skewed population. Such property of robustness to non-normality on the F-test of analysis of variance is also possessed by t-test. Boneau's empirical study on the effect of non-normality on the two-sample t-test showed that for two samples of size 5, the significance level is respectively 3.1 and 5.1% for the empirical distribution of t’s from the exponential and uniform distribution compare to the nominal 5% value. The discrepancy is decreased when sample size is increased. / Master of Science

A Virginia V-notch weir·box culvert combination gaging station is a discharge measuring device to record the runoff from small watersheds, usually less than two thousand acres in area. The station is composed of a prebuilt highway culvert, a one-foot thick triangular shaped weir placed between wing walls of the culvert entrance and a water level recorder placed 10 feet upstream from the weir. Water runs over the weir and enters the culvert, its surface elevation is controlled by the weir for low stages and, by the culvert, for high stages. The advantages of this kind of gaging station are: l. to make low flow measurable and accurate, 2. to permit free passage of debris and, 3. economical. The main purpose of this thesis is to determine the relationship between the discharge and the measured flow stage. Scaled model studies have been previously made for the same gaging station and the result is found practically agreeable. Theoretical analysis shows that the weir is hydraulically short-created. A suggestion, to place the flow stage measuring section within the wing walls of the culvert entrance, is recommended in this thesis. / Master of Science

A detailed evaluation of the suitability of the Iosipescu specimen tested in the modified Wyoming fixture is presented. An experimental investigation using conventional strain gage instrumentation and moire interferometry is performed. A finite element analysis of the Iosipescu shear test for unidirectional and cross-ply composites is used to assess the uniformity of the shear stress field in the vicinity of the notch, and demonstrate the effect of the nonuniform stress field upon the strain gage measurements used for the determination of composite shear moduli. From the test results for graphite-epoxy laminates, it is shown that the proximity of the load introduction point to the test section greatly influences the individual gage readings for certain fiber orientations but the effect upon shear modulus measurement is relatively unimportant. A numerical study of the load contact effect shows the sensitivity of some fiber configurations to the specimen/fixture contact mechanism and may account for the variations in the measured shear moduli. A comparison of the strain gage readings from one surface of a specimen with corresponding data from moire interferometry on the opposite face documented an extreme sensitivity of some fiber orientations to eccentric loading which induced twisting and yielded spurious shear stress-strain curves. In the numerical analysis, it is shown that the Iosipescu specimens for different fiber orientations have to be modeled differently in order to closely approximate the true loading conditions. Correction factors are needed to allow for the non uniformity of the strain field and the use of the average shear stress in the shear modulus evaluation. The correction factors, which are determined for the region occupied by the strain gage rosette, are found to be dependent upon the material orthotropic ratio and the finite element models. Based upon the experimental and numerical results, recommendations for improving the reliability and accuracy of the shear modulus values are made, and the implications for shear strength measurement discussed. Further application of the Iosipescu shear test to woven fabric composites is presented. The limitations of the traditional strain gage instrumentation on the satin weave and high tow plain weave fabrics is discussed. Test result of a epoxy based aluminum particulate composite is also presented. A modification of the Iosipescu specimen is proposed and investigated experimentally and numerically. It is shown that the proposed new specimen design provides a more uniform shear stress field in the test section and greatly reduces the normal and shear stress concentrations in the vicinity of the notches. While the fabrication and the material cost of the proposed specimen is tremendously reduced, it is shown the accuracy of the shear modulus measurement is not sacrificed. / Ph. D.

From the results of the cases discussed, it can be concluded that the neglect of transverse-shear deformation and normal stress results in expressions for bending moments and deflection which may be seriously in error. / / Master of Science

This dissertation presents a methodology for the statistical analysis of simulation output data. The analysis deals with the predictability of statistical inferential procedures for means and variances when the data are realizations of correlated and nonnormally distributed random variables. The purpose of the methodology is to improve the predictability of an inferential procedure with respect to the level of confidence in confidence interval analysis, or the power function in hypothesis testing. Conventional methods of statistical analysis for means lead to poor performance in their predictability if the sample observations are subject to strong autocorrelation. In addition, the predictability problem with respect to inferential procedures for variances is compounded by violation of the normality assumption. The methodology presented in this dissertation sets forth a sampling procedure to collect sequences of essentially uncorrelated observations. With these observations at hand, the statistical formulation presented leads to an estimator of the variance of the sample mean, thus yielding inferential procedures for means through the classical techniques. The formulation also leads to an estimator of the variance of the population and inferential procedures for variances are developed with an improved property of robustness. The bias in each estimator is greatly reduced due to the sampling procedure employed. Finally the research includes an algorithm for testing the lag correlation such that the sampling procedure can be actually implemented. The methods for means and variances developed in this research have been compared with corresponding conventional procedures. The comparison is based upon the predictability of the inferential procedure applied to the sample observations generated from autoregressive, simple moving average and M/M/1 queueing models. From the computational and simulation results reported in this research, the methods for means and variances suggested by this research have led to an improvement in the predictability of the analysis. / Ph. D.

After a review of the theoretical justifications of the fiscal criteria and the different concepts of sustainability the fiscal position of the EU countries selected as members of the EMU is examined. Firstly, the assessment by the Commission and the EMI is critically reported. After identifying countries with successful consolidations and those without success conclusions about the implications for sustainability are drawn. It turns out that the effort towards fiscal consolidation is not yet over for a long time. Here, the Stability and Growth Pact draws the line. In particular in countries with presently very high debt to GDP ratios the next decade in the EMU could become a hard one. Secondly, macromodel simulations shall demonstrate how asymmetric shocks (one supply and one demand shock) may hamper the ambitions towards sustainability. Similarly, a single monetary policy can have detrimental effects when the business cycles are not synchronized in Euroland. This problem is touched upon with model simulations of a change of the common interest rate. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

This study was undertaken as a beginning of an analysis of "zoning in action." Henrico County, Virginia, has had a rural zoning ordinance in force for over a third of a century. During this period, the County was transformed from a rural locality to an urban-suburban one. The study had as one of its objectives the tracing of rural zoning in response to population growth in Henrico County. The study sought to probe the types of requests sought, the manner in which they were sought, and whether or not they were granted. The consequences of zoning on real estate values were also probed. The study has shown how the initial, rather broad Ordinance has evolved in 35 years into a complex, quite restrictive ordinance. In 1933, there were four use districts. Today there are 16. Building regulations have been strengthened by the "beefing up” of older regulations and the addition of many new ones. As new problem uses have appeared, they have been incorporated into the Ordinance. Population pressures and the advent of unforeseen situations were responsible for most changes. Variance requests have been similar since the inception of the Ordinance. Sideyard and setback requests have predominated. As the Ordinance has become more restrictive, other requests have become more frequent. The vast majority of requests continue to be granted. Public interest in variance requests is for the most part dormant. The granting of variance requests affect assessed real estate values significantly only if the variance renders the property useful, where previously it was not. Zoning requests, over time, have changed markedly, however. Prior to urbanization of the County, most zoning requests were from an agricultural designation. Today agricultural requests trail business and residential requests in number. Most importantly, the ratio between zoning changes recommended by the advisory board and granted by the Board of Supervisors has changed. As requests have increased in size and in value, and as opposition has become more prevalent, professionals have dominated the presentation of requests. Rezoning of a tract to a more intensive use usually results in a doubling of its assessed value. / Master of Science