This diploma thesis deals with the comparison of car insurance products of chosen insurers on the Czech insurance market. It searches this complexity of problem in the meaning of global macroeconomic background, but also with the microeconomic ones, which are fundamental for issuing a insurance plan. It answers the ethical, moral attitudes of insurance basis.

Submitted by Setor de Tratamento da Informa??o - BC/PUCRS (tede2@pucrs.br) on 2017-03-09T14:14:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_MARCELO_UGHINI_CRUSIUS_PARCIAL.pdf: 2569330 bytes, checksum: eb16efc2beeecee13cf90015f15383d2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-09T14:14:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TES_MARCELO_UGHINI_CRUSIUS_PARCIAL.pdf: 2569330 bytes, checksum: eb16efc2beeecee13cf90015f15383d2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-10-24 / Background: Carotid disease has a high prevalence as a cause of ischemic stroke. The decision between the types of treatment for carotid stenosis has been the subject of discussion on what is most benefit for patients. The procedures performed to treat this disease are Carotid Endarterectomy (CEA) and Carotid Artery Stenting (CAS). Basically, in the literature, these two methods are almost equivalent procedures on the benefit caused for the patients analyzed in many ways, including the efficacy of revascularization, the complications of the procedures and the prevention of stroke. However, up to date, no research presented the analysis of functional brain connectivity networks with functional resting state MRI (rs-MRI) in patients that performed a CEA or CAS. We conducted neuropsychological tests to relate them with data from neuroimaging. This research aims to contribute in a pioneering way for knowledge in this field. Aims: Evaluate which type of procedure can bring more benefit to the patients with carotid artery disease in neuropsychological and functional brain connectivity. Method: Open randomized clinical trial with partial blinding; involving 33 subjects with cervical carotid artery stenosis with treatment indication and acceptable to both methods (CEA or CAS). At this time, the randomization was employed to patients who were dichotomized with the application of neuropsychological tests and clinical neurological examination. Group 1 represented the patients who underwent CEA with regional anesthesia loco (n = 18) and Group 2 patients underwent CAS (n = 15). Before the procedure all patients underwent rs-MRI and 4 to 8 weeks after the procedure, and were submitted again to an rs-MRI and also to a carotid ECO Doppler. The new assessment with neuropsychological tests and neurological clinical examination was performed three months after the procedure. Statistical analysis was performed using Student's t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results were considered significant when p ? 0.05. Results: Among the neuropsychological results, the CEA group in Boston naming test scores obtained 12.13 / 15 (?3.09) before procedure versus 13.44 / 15 (?1.63) in the post op, with p = 0.03. Visual memories (mv) tests 1 and 2 after the procedure, compared between groups showed higher values for the angioplasty group, with values of p = 0.02 for mv 1 and p = 0.007 for mv 2. Neuroimaging results showed, when the rs-RMI was analyzed with Regional Homogeneity (ReHo), three clusters in the Default Mode Network (DMN) in the CAS group; demonstrating an increase in functional connectivity post procedure. With the implementation of Independent Component Analysis (ICA) at rs-MRI, found in right frontal parietal (RFP) network 4 clusters an increased in connectivity in the post procedure for Group 2. Conclusion: There was improvement with statistical difference in two networks after angioplasty and worsening functional connectivity in these same networks with no statistical difference in the endarterectomy group postoperatively. Within the endarterectomy group had improved after the procedure in the Boston Naming Test. / Introdu??o: A doen?a carot?dea possui alta preval?ncia como causa de acidente vascular isqu?mico (AVCi). A decis?o entre os tipos de tratamento para a estenose carot?dea tem sido alvo de discuss?o, visando aos benef?cios trazidos aos pacientes. Os procedimentos realizados para tratar essa doen?a s?o a endarterectomia (CEA, do ingl?s carotid endarterectomy) e a angioplastia com implante de stent (CAS, do ingl?s carotid artery stenting). Na literatura, esses dois procedimentos praticamente equivalem-se quanto ao benef?cio aos pacientes sob v?rios aspectos, incluindo a efic?cia da revasculariza??o, as complica??es dos procedimentos e a preven??o do AVCi. O presente estudo original mostra uma an?lise da conectividade funcional cerebral com resson?ncia funcional em estado de repouso (rs-MRI, do ingl?s resting state MRI) em pacientes que realizaram a CEA e a CAS. Foram realizados, ainda, testes neuropsicol?gicos para compreens?o e rela??o com os dados da neuroimagem. Este estudo visa contribuir de forma pioneira para a busca de conhecimentos nesse aspecto. Objetivo: Avaliar qual tipo de procedimento (CEA ou CAS) pode trazer mais benef?cio ao paciente com doen?a carot?dea sob os pontos de vista neuropsicol?gico e da conectividade funcional cerebral. M?todo: Ensaio cl?nico aberto randomizado com cegamento parcial, envolvendo 33 pacientes possuidores de estenose de art?ria car?tida cervical com indica??o de tratamento admiss?vel aos dois m?todos (CEA ou CAS). Antes da realiza??o dos exames, a randomiza??o foi empregada aos pacientes, que foram dicotomizados com a aplica??o de testes neuropsicol?gicos e exame cl?nico neurol?gico. O Grupo 1 representou os pacientes que foram submetidos ? CEA com anestesia locorregional (n=18) e o Grupo 2, os pacientes submetidos ? CAS (n=15). Antes do procedimento, todos os pacientes foram submetidos ? rs-MRI e, quatro a oito semanas ap?s o procedimento, foram submetidos novamente a um exame de rs-MRI e, tamb?m, a um ECO doppler carot?deo. A nova avalia??o com testes neuropsicol?gicos e exame cl?nico neurol?gico foi realizada tr?s meses ap?s o procedimento. A an?lise estat?stica foi realizada com o teste t de Student e a an?lise de vari?ncia (ANOVA). Os resultados foram considerados significativos quando p? 0,05. Resultados: Dentre os resultados neuropsicol?gicos, o grupo da CEA, no teste de nomea??o de Boston, obteve escores de 12,13/15 (?3,09) no pr?-procedimento versus 13,44/15 (?1,63) no p?s, com signific?ncia p=0,03. Os testes de mem?rias visuais (mv) 1 e 2 ap?s o procedimento, quando comparados entre os grupos, obtiveram valores maiores para o grupo da angioplastia, com valores de signific?ncia de p=0,02 para mv 1 e de p=0,007 para mv 2. Nos resultados de neuroimagem, quando a rs-RMI foi analisada com ReHo (do ingl?s regional homogeneity), encontraram-se tr?s clusters na rede DMN (do ingl?s default mode network) no grupo CAS, demonstrando aumento de conectividade funcional no p?s-procedimento em rela??o ao pr?-procedimento. Com a aplica??o do ICA (do ingl?s independent component analysis) na rs-MRI, encontraram-se, na rede FPD (frontoparietal direita), quatro clusters, mostrando um aumento do valor na conectividade no p?s-procedimento para o Grupo 2. Conclus?o: Houve um aumento de conectividade, com diferen?a estat?stica, em duas redes (DMN e PDF) de conectividade funcional p?s-angioplastia e redu??o nessas mesmas redes, sem diferen?a estat?stica para o grupo da endarterectomia no p?s-operat?rio. Dentro do grupo da endarterectomia, houve melhora ap?s o procedimento no teste de nomea??o de Boston.

abstract: Laser radars or lidar’s have been used extensively to remotely study winds within the atmospheric boundary layer and atmospheric transport. Lidar sensors have become an important tool within the meteorology and the wind energy community. For example, Doppler lidars are used frequently in wind resource assessment, wind turbine control as well as in atmospheric science research. A Time of Flight based (ToF) direct detection lidar sensor is used in vehicles to navigate through complex and dynamic environments autonomously. These optical sensors are used to map the environment around the car accurately for perception and localization tasks that help achieve complete autonomy. This thesis begins with a detailed discussion on the fundamentals of a Doppler lidar system. The laser signal flow path to and from the target, the optics of the system and the core signal processing algorithms used to extract velocity information, were studied to get closer to the hardware of a Doppler lidar sensor. A Doppler lidar simulator was built to study the existing signal processing algorithms to detect and estimate doppler frequency, and radial velocity information. Understanding the sensor and its processing at the hardware level is necessary to develop new algorithms to detect and track specific flow structures in the atmosphere. For example, the aircraft vortices have been a topic of extensive research and doppler lidars have proved to be a valuable sensor to detect and track these coherent flow structures. Using the lidar simulator a physics based doppler lidar vortex algorithm is tested on simulated data to track a pair of counter rotating aircraft vortices. At a system level the major components of a time of flight lidar is very similar to a Doppler lidar. The fundamental physics of operation is however different. While doppler lidars are used for radial velocity measurement, ToF sensors as the name suggests provides precise depth measurements by measuring time of flight between the transmitted and the received pulses. The second part of this dissertation begins to explore the details of ToF lidar system. A system level design, to build a ToF direct detection lidar system is presented. Different lidar sensor modalities that are currently used with sensors in the market today for automotive applications were evaluated and a 2D MEMS based scanning lidar system was designed using off-the shelf components. Finally, a range of experiments and tests were completed to evaluate the performance of each sub-component of the lidar sensor prototype. A major portion of the testing was done to align the optics of the system and to ensure maximum field of view overlap for the bi-static laser sensor. As a laser range finder, the system demonstrated capabilities to detect hard targets as far as 32 meters. Time to digital converter (TDC) and an analog to digital converter (ADC) was used for providing accurate timing solutions for the lidar prototype. A Matlab lidar model was built and used to perform trade-off studies that helped choosing components to suit the sensor design specifications. The size, weight and cost of these lidar sensors are still very high and thus making it harder for automotive manufacturers to integrate these sensors into their vehicles. Ongoing research in this field is determined to find a solution that guarantees very high performance in real time and lower its cost over the next decade as components get cheaper and can be seamlessly integrated with cars to improve on-road safety. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Mechanical Engineering 2018

This licentiate thesis, with the English title Automobility towards Regional Equality? Studies of the geographical and socioeconomic diffusion of the private automobility in Sweden 1950-2000, has the overall aim to investigate the interaction between the private automobility and the Swedish socio-economical development in general. Firstly, the diffusion of private car ownership in Sweden is mapped both geographically and economically at the national level covering all citizens above the age of 18. Secondly, a comparison with the Norwegian diffusion pattern shows how automobility has interacted with two partly different national contexts. This aim will be dealt with in two articles. Since the diffusion of private cars in Sweden has not yet been examined in a long run and national perspective covering all individuals, the first article, Driving from the Centre to the Periphery? The Diffusion of Private Cars in Sweden 1950-2000 with focus on 1960-1975, investigates how the diffusion of private cars followed the over all socio-economic and geographical changes from 1960 to 1975; did changes in car ownership per capita primarily follow changes in incomes or changes in population density (urbanisation)? Swedish traffic and regional policies in the 1960s aimed at making the car an instrument for national integration and regional equality, and make it available throughout the country. In the article the effect of that policy is tested. The analysis is based on Swedish census material that includes all car owners for the years 1960, 1970 and 1975. Our conclusion is that income levels were more important than other explanations to the diffusion of private cars in Sweden between 1960 and 1975. Since Norwegian private car density has lagged behind the Swedish and did not reach the same national levels until the late 1980s, despite the same GDP per capita levels, the second article, Two Sides of the same Coin? Private Car Ownership in Sweden and Norway since 1950, compares car diffusion in Norway and Sweden in both historical time and model time in order to find specific explanations for the national and regional patterns of car diffusion. Can both the time lag and the diffusion process be explained with national differences in income, institutions, infrastructure, and population settlements? Or have regional differences in income and population density affected the outcome? Our conclusion is that car diffusion in Norway and Sweden displays two sides of same coin; the national levels converged, but the process did not follow the same regional pattern. Regional differences in income and population density have in general been a significant explanation for car density in Sweden but not in Norway. Thus, the licentiate thesis shows how private car ownership in Sweden from the 1950s has interacted with increasing regional equality, especially concerning geographical diffusion. / På omslaget år 2007.

Autonomous driving is an area of increasing investment for researchers and auto manufacturers. Integration has already begun for self-driving cars in urban environments. An essential aspect of navigation in these areas is the ability to sense and follow lane markers. This thesis focuses on the development of a vision-based control platform using lane detection to control a full-sized electric vehicle with only a monocular camera. An open-source, integrated solution is presented for automation of a stock vehicle. Aspects of reverse engineering, system identification, and low-level control of the vehicle are discussed. This work also details methods for lane detection and the design of a non-linear vision-based control strategy.

The elderly and persons residing in zero vehicle households require better transportation services by virtue of their need for special care and lack of mobility, respectively. An analysis of the travel trends of these population cohorts is essential to determine the best ways to improve transportation facilities to better serve them. Information about location of residence, life-cycle, differences by gender, employment status, driver status, highest level of education coupled with trip information like trip rate, travel times and distances trip purpose, modal split and percent of people immobile will facilitate understanding the factors that influence trip making among these people and help predict travel trends for the future. This work attempts to analyze the elderly and persons residing in zero vehicle households in the United States by using NHTS 2001 and NPTS 1990 datasets for the purpose of analysis and comparison.

This thesis presents an overall picture of demographic and socio-economic characteristics as well as journey to work travel behavior characteristics in Florida. In addition, detailed comparisons of journey to work private vehicle occupancy distribution, travel time distribution, mode choice and departure time distribution by household and individual characteristics are also provided based on three data files: American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Samples data file, Summary File 3 Public Use Microdata Samples 1% and Public Use Microdata Samples 5% data files. Utilizing the three data files, this thesis not only investigates current commuting patterns but also provides more reliable information on current journey to work characteristics and helps to gain knowledge that is useful to identify problems and provide creative solutions on related transportation issues in the state of Florida. In analyzing the data, several socio-economic and journey to work travel behavior characteristics were identified. Interesting findings include the lower utilization of transit, the lower private vehicle occupancies for individuals in Florida, and different journey to work departure time distribution by gender, by young people and by senior citizens from other adult categories. The data analysis shows that the three data files reflect acknowledged demographic trends and capture known changes such as aging of population, smaller household size, and increasing car ownership. The comparison analysis shows that in most cases, ACS PUMS data files approximate SF3 PUMS 1% and 5% data files very well. The detailed comparison of the three data files regarding journey to work travel behavior characteristics in Florida is important to decision makers who will make informed choices when evaluating alternative transportation programs and related policy issues. The knowledge of reliability of data regarding journey to work travel behavior will also help transportation professionals for travel demand modeling, transportation and land use planning and related studies.

For years statistical analysis has been applied to different areas of the natural and applied sciences to determine the degree of confidence that can be placed in research results. This work is a good example of how statistics can be applied to toxicology to enable conclusions and inferences to be made about important areas of interest such as the drugs and driving situation in New Zealand. Two thousand uninjured drivers (Study 1) who had provided an evidential blood alcohol sample, were also tested for cannabis, methamphetamine, benzodiazepines and morphine to determine the incidence of drug use by drinking drivers. To determine the proportion of drivers killed in car crashes who had used drugs and/or alcohol, two hundred and twenty nine fatally injured drivers (Study 2) were tested for alcohol, cannabis, methamphetamine, morphine, benzodiazepines and neutral and basic medicinal drugs that might have an effect on driving performance. Alcohol, cannabis and their combination were found to be the most prevalent drugs used by drivers. The analytical methodologies used were developed and validated by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd., where this work was carried out. These techniques involved liquid-liquid and liquid-solid extractions, immunoassays and chromatographic techniques for screening and confirmation assays. The statistical analysis of the results was done under the supervision of the Institute's biostatistician. An approach to cannabis culpability, intended to elucidate the role of this drug in car crashes, was applied to the Study 2 results. The number of samples collected during one year of research was not sufficient to enable statistically robust conclusions to be drawn. Cannabis use is illegal in New Zealand but drugs (different to alcohol) are not regularly tested at the roadside. This work as part of a cross-departmental project titled Drinking and drugged driver control: delineating the problem is expected to support the establishment of strategies designed to reduce the road toll and possibly include the screening of non-alcohol drugs in serious and fatally injured drivers.

<p>This licentiate thesis, with the English title Automobility towards Regional Equality? Studies of the geographical and socioeconomic diffusion of the private automobility in Sweden 1950-2000, has the overall aim to investigate the interaction between the private automobility and the Swedish socio-economical development in general. Firstly, the diffusion of private car ownership in Sweden is mapped both geographically and economically at the national level covering all citizens above the age of 18. Secondly, a comparison with the Norwegian diffusion pattern shows how automobility has interacted with two partly different national contexts. This aim will be dealt with in two articles.</p><p>Since the diffusion of private cars in Sweden has not yet been examined in a long run and national perspective covering all individuals, the first article, Driving from the Centre to the Periphery? The Diffusion of Private Cars in Sweden 1950-2000 with focus on 1960-1975, investigates how the diffusion of private cars followed the over all socio-economic and geographical changes from 1960 to 1975; did changes in car ownership per capita primarily follow changes in incomes or changes in population density (urbanisation)? Swedish traffic and regional policies in the 1960s aimed at making the car an instrument for national integration and regional equality, and make it available throughout the country. In the article the effect of that policy is tested. The analysis is based on Swedish census material that includes all car owners for the years 1960, 1970 and 1975. Our conclusion is that income levels were more important than other explanations to the diffusion of private cars in Sweden between 1960 and 1975.</p><p>Since Norwegian private car density has lagged behind the Swedish and did not reach the same national levels until the late 1980s, despite the same GDP per capita levels, the second article, Two Sides of the same Coin? Private Car Ownership in Sweden and Norway since 1950, compares car diffusion in Norway and Sweden in both historical time and model time in order to find specific explanations for the national and regional patterns of car diffusion. Can both the time lag and the diffusion process be explained with national differences in income, institutions, infrastructure, and population settlements? Or have regional differences in income and population density affected the outcome? Our conclusion is that car diffusion in Norway and Sweden displays two sides of same coin; the national levels converged, but the process did not follow the same regional pattern. Regional differences in income and population density have in general been a significant explanation for car density in Sweden but not in Norway.</p><p>Thus, the licentiate thesis shows how private car ownership in Sweden from the 1950s has interacted with increasing regional equality, especially concerning geographical diffusion.</p>

<p>Hybrid electric vehicles have two power sources - an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. These vehicles are of great interest because they contribute to a decreasing fuel consumption and air pollution and still maintain the performance of a conventional car. Different topologies are described in this thesis and especially the series and parallel hybrid electric vehicle and Toyota Prius have been studied. </p><p>This thesis also depicts modelling of a reference car and a series hybrid electric vehicle in Modelica. When appropriate, models from the Modelica standard library have been used. Models for a manual gearbox, final drive, wheel, chassis, air drag and a driver have been developed for the reference car. </p><p>For the hybrid electric vehicle a continuously variable transmission, battery, an electric motor, fuel cut-off function for the internal combustion engine and a converter that distributes the current between generator, electric motor and internal combustion engine have been designed. </p><p>These models have been put together with models from the Modelica standard library to a reference car and a series hybrid electric vehicle which follows the NEDC driving cycle. A sketch for the parallel hybrid electric vehicle and Toyota Prius have also been made in Modelica. </p><p>Developed models have been introduced into the Modelica library VehProLib, which is a vehicle propulsion library under development by Vehicular Systems, Linköpings universitet.</p>