This research investigated the association of street network connectivity differences across travel modes with travel behaviour – mode choice, distance traveled and number of trips. To date research on travel behaviour relationships with urban form has not developed empirical evidence on street designs as distinct networks for walking and driving. A street network having greater connectivity and continuity for the pedestrian mode of travel vis-à-vis the vehicular network, like the Fused Grid, will likely encourage more walking. This hypothesis was investigated using a quasi-experimental approach within a rational utility behavioural framework. Local travel behaviour is theorized to be affected by desire to access goods and services (broadly termed, ‘activities’) in the community where people live. Using inferential statistics, the research tested for relationships between measured street patterns and self-reported local travel by King County, WA households. The main variables were ratios (walking : driving) of network connectivity and density, in the vicinity of travel survey households. Demographics and household characteristics, as well as other behaviourally influential urban form factors (residential density, proximity of destinations, etc.), were included in regression models, allowing control for confounding factors. Findings suggest that street networks with connectivity that provides better routing for one mode of transportation over others encourage more travel by the favored mode. The regression model demonstrated that a change from a pure small-block grid to a modified grid (i.e. Fused Grid) can result in an 11.3% increase in odds of a home-based trip being walked. The modified street pattern like a Fused Grid is also associated with a 25.9% increase, over street patterns with equivalent route directness for walking and driving, in the odds a person will meet recommended levels of physical activity. Finally, the Fused Grid’s 10% increase in relative connectivity for pedestrians is associated with a 23% decrease in local vehicle travel distance (VMT), and its improved continuity is associated with increased walking trips and distance. Conclusions: Other factors being equal, residential street networks with either more direct routing for pedestrians or more pedestrian facilities relative to vehicular network are associated with improved odds of walking and reduced odds of driving. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This thesis investigated the cost-effectiveness of a 12-month supervised aerobic walking program with or without a behavioural intervention and an educational pamphlet, compared to an unsupervised/self-directed educational pamphlet intervention, among individuals with moderate osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Analyses included an economic evaluation to assess the cost effectiveness of the two walking interventions from both the societal and Canadian provincial/territorial health care payer perspectives. A value of information analysis exploring the potential value of future research was also performed. Results revealed that the unsupervised/self-directed intervention was the most cost-effective approach given that it cost the least to implement and participants had higher quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Walking, either supervised in a community setting, or unsupervised in a setting such as the home, may be a favourable non-pharmacological option for the management of OA of the knee. The thesis concludes with a policy discussion relating to the funding of non-pharmacological therapies.

This thesis presents two modern control methods to address the Internet traffic congestion control issues. They are based on a distributed traffic management framework for the fast-growing Internet traffic in which routers are deployed with intelligent or optimal data rate controllers to tackle the traffic mass. The first one is called the IntelRate (Intelligent Rate) controller using the fuzzy logic theory. Unlike other explicit traffic control protocols that have to estimate network parameters (e.g., link latency, bottleneck bandwidth, packet loss rate, or the number of flows), our fuzzy-logic-based explicit controller can measure the router queue size directly. Hence it avoids various potential performance problems arising from parameter estimations while reducing much computation and memory consumption in the routers. The communication QoS (Quality of Service) is assured by the good performances of our scheme such as max-min fairness, low queueing delay and good robustness to network dynamics. Using the Lyapunov’s Direct Method, this controller is proved to be globally asymptotically stable. The other one is called the OFEX (Optimal and Fully EXplicit) controller using convex optimization. This new scheme is able to provide not only optimal bandwidth allocation but also fully explicit congestion signal to sources. It uses the congestion signal from the most congested link, instead of the cumulative signal from a flow path. In this way, it overcomes the drawback of the relatively explicit controllers that bias the multi-bottlenecked users, and significantly improves their convergence speed and throughput performance. Furthermore, the OFEX controller design considers a dynamic model by proposing a remedial measure against the unpredictable bandwidth changes in contention-based multi-access networks (such as shared Ethernet or IEEE 802.11). When compared with the former works/controllers, such a remedy also effectively reduces the instantaneous queue size in a router, and thus significantly improving the queueing delay and packet loss performance. Finally, the applications of these two controllers on wireless local area networks have been investigated. Their design guidelines/limits are also provided based on our experiences.

The thesis deals with usage of additional services as a marketing technique of utility companies after the liberalization of natural gas and electricity markets. Aim of the thesis is to design a portfolio of additional services that will provide a utility company with a loyal customer base. The portfolio is based on analysis of theoretical background as well as analysis of current supply of additional services on Czech and foreign utility markets.

The diploma thesis deals with the law of patents and utility models in selected countries. In the first part of this work patents and utility models are characterized in terms of their legislation in the Czech Republic. The main differences and similarities in the laws of patents and utility models in Germany and the United States of America to the czech law are analyzed in the next parts of this work. The aim of this work is to determine, how the issue of patents and utility models is implemented into law in 3 selected countries, the Czech Republic, Germany and the United States of America, with the emphasis on the analysis of differences between the proceedings of patent's grant and proceedings of the utility model's registration into the registers in above mentioned countries. The part of this aim is to find out what tools which support inventions and innovations are being used in these countries and which one is the most effective one. The issue regarding differences in implementing patents and utility models into law is resolved in this diploma thesis -- a special focus was given to the length and complexity of each proceeding as well as the costs needed to gain and keep the rights in force.

<p>The standard of diagnosing and categorizing mental disorders in the United States has long been the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but the DSM has been criticized through evidence suggesting it lacks appropriate validity, reliability, and clinical utility. The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) has been offered as a solution to these criticisms. But the recommendation to replace the DSM and its categorical diagnostic system has been met with doubt and criticism by others in the field. A common sentiment in these critiques is a lack of evidence that the HiTOP dimensions are clinically useful or that clinicians would be open to applying them to their patients. The goal of the present study was to compare clinician perceptions of the HiTOP and DSM systems for the conceptualization of clinical cases. A sample of actively practicing clinicians (<i>n</i> = 143) rated one of three clinical vignettes using the HiTOP and DSM systems then rated the two approaches on seven indices of clinical utility. HiTOP was favored for overall clinical utility score as well as utility for formulating effective intervention, communicating clinical information to the client, comprehensively describing client psychopathology, describing global functioning, and ease of applying the system to the individual. There was no preference between HiTOP and the DSM for communicating with other mental health providers. The DSM was not favored for any clinical utility outcome. These results suggest interest in HiTOP and dissatisfaction with the DSM among clinicians.</p>

Thesys is focused on wireless transfer of the sensor data. It describes different wireless standards for potential use and realization of interface between sensor's data and their transfer. Crux of the matter is in detailed description of whole system with created utility programs. In the end it is summarized acquiered features of the realization.

This thesis explores narrow category of railroad universal maintenance vehicles, or draisines. It focuses specifically on the long tradition of czech models. The goal of the work is to take this analysis, and use this knowledge to synthesise a new draisine design, which will bring a set of specific advantages, especially from the point of aesthetics and user comfort.

abstract: Underground infrastructure is a critical part of the essential utility services provided to society and the backbone of modern civilization. However, now more than ever before, the disastrous events of a striking underground utilities cost billions of dollars each year in societal damages. Advanced technology and sophisticated visualization techniques such as augmented reality (AR) now play a significant role in mitigating such devastating consequences. Therefore, it is vitally important to coordinate resources, share information, and ensure efficient communication between construction personnel and utility owners. Besides, geographic information systems (GIS) provide a solution for interoperability in the construction industry. Applying such technologies in the field of underground construction requires accurate and up-to-date information. However, there is currently limited research that has integrated AR and GIS and evaluated the effectiveness and usability of the combination in this domain. The main objective of this research was to develop an integrated AR-GIS for mapping and capturing underground utilities using a mobile device. To achieve these objectives, a design research approach utilized to develop and evaluate a mobile extended-reality (XR-GIS) application. This research has produced an efficient solution for data collection and sharing among stakeholders in the underground construction industry. The main challenge in creating a reliable and adaptive outdoor AR system is the accurate registration of virtual objects in the real world. Due to the limited accuracy of smartphones, this study used an external Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to reduce positional error. The primary motivation behind this research is to make the construction industry more aware of the benefits of leveraging AR to prevent utility strikes and enhance public safety. This dissertation fills the gap in the knowledge regarding applying Augmented Reality (AR) in the underground infrastructure mapping. This study’s three research objectives are: (1) Identify the challenges and barriers facing the underground construction industry when applying AR. (2) Develop an integrated AR-GIS for mapping and capturing underground utilities using a mobile device. (3) Evaluate the horizontal accuracy of the captured data used by the AR phone application XR-GIS that has been developed by the author. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 2020

Any business striving to improve its productivity, must first establish and practise at all levels a universal method for measurement and analysis of its performance. A prerequisite for any analysis, is an appropriate definition of the system which is to be analysed. The rationale and derivation process for such system definition, is termed "modelling", and its product a "model". Deterministic Productivity Accounting (DPA), is a comparative analysis method for business performance. It is based on the premise that business performance is primarily determined by resource management, and measured in terms of productivity. By judicious partitioning and modelling of the business systems, and careful counting and accounting for every variance component, one traces the driving causes behind the apparent performance. This work combiaes modelling of power utility systems with the application of DPA, into an integrated method for performance measurement and analysis within a power utiljty, especially in a power station. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 1990. / gm2014 / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted