A hanseníase, doença crônica estigmatizante com potencial de causar danos neurológicos, resulta da infecção pelo Mycobacterium leprae. Análises epidemiológicas atuais têm utilizado ferramentas clínicas e de análise espacial para o mapeamento dos principais focos de ocorrência de doenças e de áreas de alto risco. Analisar os municípios maranhenses quanto à distribuição dos casos de hanseníase torna-se uma ferramenta a mais na prevenção e controle da Hanseníase no estado por inúmeros fatores: comporta-se como área hiperendêmica de hanseníase; apresenta fluxo migratório intenso com outras cidades de forma interestadual; e tem grandes contrastes sociais marcados por pouca, ou nenhuma, infraestrutura básica em algumas áreas dos vários municípios deste. Objetivos: Analisar a distribuição espaço-temporal da hanseníase para o estado do Maranhão, no período de 2001 a 2013. Identificar a ocorrência de agrupamentos espaços-temporais de provável alta transmissão (risco) e verificar se há associação dessa distribuição de taxas de detecção de risco relativo (RR) da doença com as variáveis do contexto geográfico como socioeconômicas e ambientais. Metodologia: A fonte de coleta dos dados clínicos e epidemiológicos foi o Sistema de Informação Nacional de Agravos Notificáveis do Ministério da Saúde e dos dados demográficos, ambientais e bases cartográficas digitais do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Foi adotada uma abordagem ecológica sobre tendências dos padrões espaçostemporais de transmissibilidade, com utilização dos métodos: varredura espacial (scan), para a identificação dos agregados (clusters) de risco, considerando o modelo de distribuição de probabilidade Discreto de Poisson; Estimador Bayesiano Empírico para a suavização local de taxas, a partir de informações de municípios vizinhos tendo como estratégia de construção o critério da contiguidade; regressão múltipla espacial considerando uma modelagem com distribuição de Poisson no contexto Bayesiano, levando em conta a dependência espacial, com o propósito de avaliar a relação entre a ocorrência da variável dependente com as variáveis demográficas, socioeconômicas e ambientais. Resultados: A taxa média de detecção foi de 6,73 casos por 10.000 hab., com 53.826 casos notificados no período. O estudo revelou que a distribuição dos casos de sexo masculino (57,75%) apresentou maior proporção em relação ao feminino (42,25%), havendo predominância da doença na faixa etária >15 anos (89,87%). A alta ocorrência na classificação operacional multibacilar (60,10%) é um forte indicativo decorrente do longo período de incubação da doença somado ao não diagnóstico precoce. A análise da distribuição dos agregados espaciais identificou 14 (7 de risco alto e 7 de risco baixo) e 6 (3 de risco alto e 3 de risco baixo) agrupamentos espaciais, considerando-se 10% e 50% da população em risco, respectivamente, em áreas com taxas de detecção alta e que possuem baixa qualidade de vida. O estimador Bayesiano empírico local possibilitou gerar índices corrigidos e com menores instabilidades. A análise de regressão múltipla espacial mostrou que as variáveis índice Gini, bioma predominante cerrado/caatinga e percentual de população urbana tiveram associação positiva e significativa para explicar o risco relativo (RR) no estado do Maranhão. Conclusões: O estudo mostrou que existem aglomerados com elevado risco para transmissão da hanseníase no estado do Maranhão. A associação entre o risco relativo da hanseníase e o percentual de população urbana indica que a hipótese que associa o M. leprae e a população que vive em condições de acentuada desigualdade socioeconômica ainda é forte. Essa hiperendemicidade pode demonstrar que o crescimento da população urbana é um preditor de incidência da hanseníase, face à urbanização descontrolada e ao fluxo de migrantes advindos de diferentes espaços rurais. Foi possível identificar áreas prioritárias para implementação de programas eficazes de controle de hanseníase no estado do Maranhão. / Leprosy, a chronic stigmatizing disease with the potential to cause neurological damage resulting from infection by Mycobacterium leprae. Current epidemiological studies have used clinical and spatial analysis for mapping of the main occurrence of disease outbreaks and high-risk areas. Analyze the municipalities of Maranhão state regarding the distribution of leprosy cases becomes another tool in the prevention and control of leprosy in the state by numerous factors like behaves as hyper-endemic area of leprosy; It presents intense migration to other interstate cities; and has great social contrasts marked by little or no basic infrastructure in some areas of several municipalities.. Objectives: To analyze the spatiotemporal distribution of leprosy in the Maranhão state, from 2001 to 2013. To identify the spatiotemporal clusters occurrence of probable high transmission (risk) and check for association of this distribution of relative risk (RR) detection rates of the disease with the variables of geographic context as socioeconomic and environmental. Methodology: Clinical and epidemiological data was obtained from the Ministry of Healths Disease Reporting System and demographic data, environmental and digital cartographic bases were obtained from the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute. An ecological approach to trends transmissibility of spatiotemporal patterns, using the methods: spatial scan to identification the clusters of risk, considering the Discrete Poisson probability distribution model; empirical Bayesian method was applied for local rate flattening, using data from municipalities having as building strategy the criterion of contiguity; ecological regression modeling with considering a Poisson distribution in the Bayesian context, taking into account the spatial dependence, in order to evaluate the relationship between the occurrence of the dependent variable with demographic, socioeconomic and environmental variables. Results: The mean detection rate was 6.73 cases per 10,000 inhabitants, with 53,826 reported cases. The study revealed that the distribution of male cases (57.75%) showed a predominance over female (42.25%), with predominance of the disease in the age group upper than 15 years (89.87%). The high occurrence in operational classification multibacillary (60.10%) is a strong indication due to the long incubation period of the disease added to no early diagnosis. The analysis of the distribution of spatial clusters identified 14 (7 high risk and 7 low risk) and 6 (3 high risk and 3 low risk) spatial clusters, considering 10% and 50% of the population at risk in areas with high detection rates and which have low quality of life. Local empirical Bayes estimator allowed to generate fixed and minor instabilities indexes. The best results of modeling to spatial multiple regression analysis for the relative risk (RR) presented for the variables Gini index, cerrado/caatinga biome and percentage of urban population. Conclusions: The study showed that there are clusters at high risk for transmission of leprosy in the Maranhao state. The association between the relative risk of leprosy and the percentage of urban population indicates that the hypothesis that associates M. leprae and the population living in severe socioeconomic inequality is still strong. This hyperendemicity can demonstrate that the growth of the urban population is a predictor incidence of leprosy due to uncontrolled urbanization and the influx of migrants coming from different rural areas.It was possible to identify priority areas for implementation of effective leprosy control programs in the Maranhão state.

Road network of a region is of a paramount importance in the overall development. Management of road traffic is a key factor for the city authority and reducing the road traffic congestion is a significant challenge in this perspective. In this thesis, a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based road-traffic monitoring scheme with dynamic mathematical traffic model is presented that will not necessarily include all adjacent intersections of a block; rather the important major intersections of a city. The objective of this scheme is to reduce the congestion by re-routing the vehicles to better performing road-segments by informing the down-stream drivers through broadcasting the congestion information in a dedicated radio channel. The dynamic model can provide with the instantaneous status of the traffic of the road-network. The scheme is a WSN based multi-hop relay network with hierarchical architecture and composed of ordinary nodes, Cluster-Head nodes, Base Stations, Gateway nodes and Monitoring and Control Centers (MCC) etc. Through collecting the traffic information, MCC will check the congestion status and in defining the congestion, threshold factors have been used in this model. For the congested situation of a road-segment, a cost function has been defined as a performance indicator and estimated using the weight factors (importance) of these selected intersections. This thesis considered a traffic network with twelve major intersections of a city with four major directions. Traffic arrivals in these intersections are assumed to follow Poisson distribution. Model was simulated in Matlab with traffic generated through Poisson Random Number Generator and cost function was estimated for the congestion status of the road-segments over a simulation period of 1440 minutes starting from midnight. For optimization purpose we adopted two different approaches; in the first approach, performance of the scheme was evaluated for all threshold factor values iteratively one at a time, applying a threshold factor value to define threshold capacities of all the road segments; traffic was generated and relative cost has been estimated following the model specifications with the purpose of congestion avoidance. In the second approach, different values of threshold factor have been used for different road segments for determining the optimum set-up, and exhaustive search technique has been applied with a smaller configuration in order to keep computations reachable. Simulation results show the capacity of this scheme to improve the traffic performance by reducing the congestion level with low congestion costs.

Metodologias para obtenção do tamanho amostral para estimar a concentração de organismos em água de lastro e verificar normas internacionais são desenvolvidas sob uma abordagem bayesiana. Consideramos os critérios da cobertura média, do tamanho médio e da minimização do custo total sob os modelos Poisson com distribuição a priori gama e binomial negativo com distribuição a priori Pearson Tipo VI. Além disso, consideramos um processo Dirichlet como distribuição a priori no modelo Poisson com o propósito de obter maior flexibilidade e robustez. Para fins de aplicação, implementamos rotinas computacionais usando a linguagem R. / Sample size methodologies for estimating the organism concentration in ballast water and for verifying international standards are developed under a Bayesian approach. We consider the criteria of average coverage, of average length and of total cost minimization under the Poisson model with a gamma prior distribution and the negative binomial model with a Pearson type VI prior distribution. Furthermore, we consider a Dirichlet process as a prior distribution in the Poisson model with the purpose to gain more flexibility and robustness. For practical applications, we implemented computational routines using the R language.

A functional spare parts management for a producing paper industry is a key to maintain an efficient production. A non functional component of a value-creating chain may lead to major financial losses. A downtime in a plant is normally costly and can amount to hundreds of thousands of swedish crowns. High stocks of spare parts will in turn generate high amount of tied up capital. A good way to reduce these inventory balances is to let facilities within the same geographical area have a pooling of identical spare parts. The purpose of this study is two-folded. First, through literature studies and interviews, find out what characteristics a spare part should fulfill to be suitable in a joint spare parts management. The second is to investigate, through practical studies, the value a joint management offers from an economic perspective. Interviews are conducted with key personnel for the spare parts management at each individual factory, all these over the telephone. The interviews are conducted so that the authors gain a deeper insight into how they collaborate today and get the respondent's views on future collaboration. The result from the literature study, what properties an article should have for use in a joint spare parts network are the following; high value, slow moving article, high process criticality and long delivery time from supplier. By applying poisson distribution and LCC analysis on twelve selected spare parts, the result shows that the case company can save up to SEK 915,000 by implementing a joint spare parts management. / En fungerande reservdelshantering för en producerande pappersindustrianläggning är en av nycklarna för att bibehålla en effektiv produktion. När en värdeskapande kedja upphör att fungera kan det leda till stora ekonomiska förluster. Ett driftstopp i en anläggning är normalt sätt kostsamma och kan uppgå till hundratusentals kronor. Detta medför höga lagersaldon av reservdelar som i sin tur genererar till mycket bundet kapital. Ett bra sätt att få ner dessa lagersaldon är att anläggningar inom samma geografiska area har en gemensam reservdelshantering för identiska reservdelar. Syftet med denna undersökning är tvådelat. Det första är att genom litteraturstudier och intervjuer upprätta ett underlag för att identifiera reservdelsartiklar att samarbeta med. Det andra är att påvisa vilken ekonomisk sparpotential som finns vid en gemensam reservdelshantering. Intervjuer genomförs med nyckelpersoner för reservdelshanteringen på varje enskilt bruk. Intervjuerna genomförs för att författarna ska få en djupare insikt i hur de samarbetar idag samt få respondenternas synpunkter på framtida samarbete. Resultatet utifrån litteraturstudien har medfört att de egenskaper en artikel bör inneha för att användas i ett gemensamt reservdelsnätverk är följande; högt ekonomiskt värde, låg omsättningshastighet, hög processkritikalitet samt lång leveranstid från leverantör. Genom att använda poissonfördelning och LCC-analys på tolv stycken artiklar blir resultatet att fallföretaget kan spara 915 000 kr vid implementering av gemensam reservdelshantering.

Pas de résumé en français / Malaria is a devastating global health problem that affected 219 million people and caused 660,000 deaths in 2010. Inaccurate estimation of the level of infection may have adverse clinical and therapeutic implications for patients, and for epidemiological endpoint measurements. The level of infection, expressed as the parasite density (PD), is classically defined as the number of asexual parasites relative to a microliter of blood. Microscopy of Giemsa-stained thick blood smears (TBSs) is the gold standard for parasite enumeration. Parasites are counted in a predetermined number of high-power fields (HPFs) or against a fixed number of leukocytes. PD estimation methods usually involve threshold values; either the number of leukocytes counted or the number of HPFs read. Most of these methods assume that (1) the distribution of the thickness of the TBS, and hence the distribution of parasites and leukocytes within the TBS, is homogeneous; and that (2) parasites and leukocytes are evenly distributed in TBSs, and thus can be modeled through a Poisson-distribution. The violation of these assumptions commonly results in overdispersion. Firstly, we studied the statistical properties (mean error, coefficient of variation, false negative rates) of PD estimators of commonly used threshold-based counting techniques and assessed the influence of the thresholds on the cost-effectiveness of these methods. Secondly, we constituted and published the first dataset on parasite and leukocyte counts per HPF. Two sources of overdispersion in data were investigated: latent heterogeneity and spatial dependence. We accounted for unobserved heterogeneity in data by considering more flexible models that allow for overdispersion. Of particular interest were the negative binomial model (NB) and mixture models. The dependent structure in data was modeled with hidden Markov models (HMMs). We found evidence that assumptions (1) and (2) are inconsistent with parasite and leukocyte distributions. The NB-HMM is the closest model to the unknown distribution that generates the data. Finally, we devised a reduced reading procedure of the PD that aims to a better operational optimization and a practical assessing of the heterogeneity in the distribution of parasites and leukocytes in TBSs. A patent application process has been launched and a prototype development of the counter is in process.

This paper deals with CUSUM tests for monitoring of intensity parameter of a Poisson process if this process can be observed in a restricted manner only at pregiven equidistant time points. In this case the process can be monitored by means of a CUSUM test for the parameter of a corresponding Poisson distribution. For rational reference parameter values the computation of average run length is reduced to that of solving of a system of simultaneous linear equations. The performance of obtained CUSUM tests is discussed by means of corresponding examples.

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The premise of this report is to delve into sports betting and whether favourable opportunities can be found, more specifically focusing on over and under odds for number of goals scored in football games of the Premier League. Using historical data from football matches several models are developed, the characteristics of goals warranting the use of probability based Poisson and Negative Binomial models, as well as Bayesian Poisson regression for goal predictions. Once these models were developed odds was found and compared to bookmakers, the results indicated that all models, to varying degrees, find favourable opportunities and profitable betting strategies can be identified. This suggests that bookmakers do not always price betting products according to their true probabilities likely due to book balancing and informational asymmetries. Furthermore it indicates that there is a presence of inefficiencies in the sports betting market. / Den här rapporten kommer djupdyka i betting och huruvida gynnsamma möjligheter kan hittas. Mer specifikt kommer ett fokus ligga på över/under odds för antalet mål i fotbollsmatcher i engelska Premier League. Genom att använda historisk data från fotbollsmatcher utvecklas flera olika statistiska modeller för att förutspå antalet mål i fotbollsmatcher. Skattning av Poisson och Negativ Binomial fördelningar samt utvecklandet av en Bayesiansk Poisson regressionsmodell motiveras av egenskaperna hos antalet mål i fotbollsmatcher. Med dessa modeller, beräknas odds för flera framtida matcher inom Premier League och dessa jämfördes med odds som ges av bettingbolag. Resultaten indikerar att alla modeller kan, i olika stor utsträckning, hitta gynnsamma möjligheter och lönsamma betting strategier kan identifieras. Detta tyder på att bettingbolag inte alltid sätter sina odds enbart baserat på den faktiska sannolikheten, vilket troligtvis beror på att bolagen balanserar sina böcker samt informationsasymmetrier. Dessutom indikerar resultatet på att det finns faktorer på bettingmarknaden som gör marknaden ineffektiv.

År 2024 upplevde Sverige längre väntetider och sämre tillgänglighet inom både primär- och specialiserad vård jämfört med andra länder. Detta ledde till ökat tryck på akutmottagningar då många patienter sökte sig dit för vård som annars kunde hanterats på ordinära mottagningar om tillräcklig personal funnits tillgänglig. Denna studie fokuserar på att undersöka patientflöden vid Danderyds sjukhus genom att identifiera flaskhalsar inom akutmottagningen. Studiens syfte var att hitta flaskhalsar som kan åtgärdas för att minska väntetiderna och förbättra resursanvändningen genom att använda matematiska modeller och diskret händelsesimulering. Analysen baseras på data insamlad under det första kvartalet för åren 2022, 2023 och 2024. Resultaten från simuleringarna visar kritiska statistiska mått som är avgörande för att förstå systemets kapacitet och prestanda under varierande belastningar. Dessa resultat belyser även nödvändigheten av resursallokering och förväntade väntetider för patienter. Studien bidrar inte bara till en bra förståelse av de nuvarande processerna utan presenterar även strategier för att effektivt hantera de utmaningar akutmottagningarna står inför. Slutsatserna diskuterar de teoretiska och praktiska implikationerna med betoning på hur simuleringarna kan användas för att utforska nya arbetsmetoder för akutmottagningar framöver. Denna forskning lägger grunden för framtida innovationer inom sjukvårdens arbetsflöden och resursallokering, vilket kan leda till förbättrad patientvård och effektivare sjukhusdrift. / In 2024, Sweden experienced longer wait times and reduced accessibility in both primary and specialized care compared to other countries. This led to increased pressure on emergency departments, as many patients sought care there that could have been managed at regular clinics if sufficient staff were available. This study focuses on examining patient flows at Danderyd Hospital by identifying bottlenecks within the emergency department. The aim of the study was to find bottlenecks that can be addressed to reduce wait times and improve resource utilization through the use of mathematical models and discrete event simulation. The analysis is based on data collected during the first quarter of the years 2022, 2023, and 2024. The results from the simulations reveal critical statistical measures that are essential for understanding the system's capacity and performance under varying loads. These results also highlight the need for resource allocation and expected wait times for patients. The study not only contributes to a better understanding of the current processes but also presents strategies for effectively addressing the challenges faced by emergency departments. The conclusions discuss the theoretical and practical implications, emphasizing how the simulations can be used to explore new working methods for emergency departments in the future. This research lays the foundation for future innovations in healthcare workflows and resource allocation, which can lead to improved patient care and more efficient hospital operations.

Face checking in decorative maple veneered plywood panels is a significant problem for hardwood plywood manufacturers, furniture makers, cabinetmakers, and consumers. Efforts made by panel producers and researchers to minimize checking conducted to-­‐date have been limited, and produced contradictory results. In this study the impact of four manufacturing factors believed to contribute to check development in decorative maple veneer panels were determined. The factors investigated were face veneer thickness and preparation, lathe-­‐check orientation, adhesive and core type. An efficient, automated, optical technique based on digital image correlation principles was developed and used to detect and measure checks as they develop. The novel new method for characterizing check severity and development was effective in efficiently measuring checking for a substantial number of samples. The results of the factor screening analysis reveal intricate four way interactions between factor levels contribute to check development, and that some combinations are likely to exhibit much more checking than others. / Graduation date: 2013