Hypothesis: "By an environmental change in high school vending machines, making water available, students will choose water over the sugar sweetened sodas." This document highlights a case study analysis of vendor-provided refill data for forty-five beverage vending machines at two campus sites in one high school district in 2003 and 2004. The innovative study and publicized negotiated soda contract of a 50:50 (healthy to unhealthy) beverage ratio stipulation became the “Win-Win-WEAN” compromise, in which exposure to healthier beverage options for students might prove to provide the same income opportunity for the school district. An overview of the political climate in California leading to this local advocacy for reduced availability of sodas on school campuses, which began in 1999 before the passage of Senate Bill 19- Pupil Nutrition, Health Achievement Act of October 2001 (SB-19) is also addressed. The quagmire to generate and implement this unique pilot of a 5-year contract stipulating a 50:50 ratio, with strategic placement of qualified healthy beverages in the top slots of the 45 machines, is discussed to give context of the beverage industry practices. The ratio stipulation was intended to target one significant area of empty calories in students’ daily environments in attempt to help reverse the unprecedented obesity epidemic among adolescents. The agreement voted upon by the Santa Maria Joint Union School District’s Board of Trustees in a public meeting, as noted in the minutes of August 14, 2002, was not implemented as originally approved and thus a series of negotiation meetings began, prompting this data analysis. The 50:50 ratio, per SB-19, was not achieved during the performance life of the contract between the school district and the beverage vendor. School district administration fiscal year-end data in March 2005 confirmed that the hypothesis of a net profit sales quota of $60,000 was rejected, as there was a $7,300 shortfall. The data analyzed did determine that the highest selling, single beverage productwas un-flavored (plain) water with a 65% share. This information was contrary to the beverage vendor and school district business superintendents’ pre-conceived ideas that water in the machines would cause them to lose money. In reality water was the highest revenue generator beverage. The $60,000 minimum guaranteed annual commission, which was in actuality a sales quota projection, was still acknowledged as a contractual commitment by the vendor so no actual deficiency in fund payments was experienced by the school district. The profit margin for both water and other products was 40 cents per can. The data analysis showed that water was indeed the highest selling beverage regardless of equipment malfunction, restocking failures, and misrepresentation of drinks as healthy by vending machine placement and clever advertising with label changes for the same beverage. When water was included in the vending machines, students responded with immediate purchasing of water, demonstrating the 4th of five distinct stages of readiness for behavior change as “Action” following the principles of Drs’ Prochaska and Di Clemete’s Trans-Theoretical model. This model outlines different levels toward sustained behavior change and typical timelines of each relative stage of change. Keywords: beverage consumption, sodas, obesity, empty calories.

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Prior to 1980, the practice in multilevel autorack management was to load the railcars at various origin points, ship them to the destination ramps, unload them, and then return each car to the loading point where it originated. Recognizing the inefficiency of such a practice with respect to the fleet size that had to be maintained, and the associated poor utilization due to the excessive empty miles logged, a consolidation of the railcars was initiated and completed by February 1982. Under this pooling program, a central management was established to control the repositioning of three types of empty railcars for eight principal automobile manufacturers. Today, the practice is to consolidate the fleets of all automobile manufacturers for each equipment type, and to solve the distribution problem of repositioning empty multilevel autoracks of each type from points at which they are unloaded to automobile assembly facilities where they need to be reloaded. Each such problem is referred to in the railroad industry as a repositioning scenario. In this dissertation, we present two tactical models to assist in the task of centrally managing the distribution of empty railcars on a day-to-day basis for each repositioning scenario. These models take into account various practical issues such as uncertainties, priorities with respect to time and demand locations, multiple objectives related to minimizing different types of latenesses in delivery, and blocking issues. It is also of great practical interest to the central management team to have the ability to conduct various sensitivity analyses in its operation. Accordingly, the system provides for the capability to investigate various what-if scenarios such as fixing decisions on running a specified block of cars (control orders) along certain routes as dictated by business needs, and handling changes in supplies, demands, priorities, and transit time characteristics. Moreover, the solution methodology provides a flexible decision-making capability by permitting a series of runs based on a sequential decision-fixing process in a real-time operational mode. A turn-around response of about five minutes per scenario (on a Pentium PC or equivalent) is desired in practice. This dissertation begins by developing several progressive formulations that incorporate many practical considerations in the empty railroad car distribution planning system. We investigate the performance of two principal models in this progression to gain more insights into the implementation aspects of our approach. The first model (TDSS1: Tactical Decision Support System-1) considers all the identified features of the problem except for blocking, and results in a network formulation of the problem. This model examines various practical issues such as time and demand location-based priorities as well as uncertainty in data within a multiple objective framework. In the second model (TDSS2: Tactical Decision Support System-2), we add a substantial degree of complexity by addressing blocking considerations. Enforcement of block formation renders the model as a network flow problem with side-constraints and discrete side-variables. We show how the resulting mixed-integer-programming formulation can be enhanced via some partial convex hull constructions using the Reformulation-Linearization Technique (RLT). This tightening of the underlying linear programming relaxation is shown to permit the solution of larger problem sizes, and enables the exact solution of certain scenarios having 5,000 - 8,000 arcs. However, in order to accommodate the strict run-time limit requirements imposed in practice for larger scenarios having about 150,000 arcs, various heuristics are developed to solve this problem. In using a combination of proposed strategies, 23 principal heuristics, plus other hybrid variants, are composed for testing. By examining the performance of various exact and heuristic procedures with respect to speed of operation and the quality of solutions produced on a test-bed of real problems, we prescribe recommendations for a production code to be used in practice. Besides providing a tool to aid in the decision-making process, a principal utility of the developed system is that it provides the opportunity to conduct various what-if analyses. The effects of many of the practical considerations that have been incorporated in TDSS2 can be studied via such sensitivity analyses. A special graphical user interface has been implemented that permits railcar distributors to investigate the effects of varying supplies, demands, and routes, retrieving railcars from storage, diverting en-route railcars, and exploring various customer or user-driven fixed dispositions. The user has the flexibility, therefore, to sequentially compose a decision to implement on a daily basis by using business judgment to make suggestions and studying the consequent response prompted by the model. This system is currently in use by the TTX company, Chicago, Illinois, in order to make distribution decisions for the railroad and automobile industries. The dissertation concludes by presenting a system flowchart for the overall implemented approach, a summary of our research and provides recommendations for future algorithmic enhancements based on Lagrangian relaxation techniques. NOTE: (03/2011) An updated copy of this ETD was added after there were patron reports of problems with the file. / Ph. D.

Let M be a finite set of random uniformly distributed points lying in a unit cube. Every four points from M make a tetrahedron and the tetrahedron can either contain some of the other points from M, or it can be empty. This diploma thesis brings an upper bound of the expected value of the number of empty tetrahedra with respect to size of M. We also show how precise is the upper bound in comparison to an approximation computed by a straightforward algorithm. In the last section we move from the three- dimensional case to a general dimension d. In the general d-dimensional case we have empty d-simplices in a d-hypercube instead of empty tetrahedra in a cube. Then we compare the upper bound for d-dimensional case to the results from another paper on this topic. 1

Graph databases with the property graph model are used in multiple domains including social networks, biology, and data integration. They provide schema-flexible storage for data of a different degree of a structure and support complex, expressive queries such as subgraph isomorphism queries. The exibility and expressiveness of graph databases make it difficult for the users to express queries correctly and can lead to unexpected query results, e.g. empty results. Therefore, we propose a relaxation approach for subgraph isomorphism queries that is able to automatically rewrite a graph query, such that the rewritten query is similar to the original query and returns a non-empty result set. In detail, we present relaxation operations applicable to a query, cardinality estimation heuristics, and strategies for prioritizing graph query elements to be relaxed. To determine the similarity between the original query and its relaxed variants, we propose a novel cardinality-based graph edit distance. The feasibility of our approach is shown by using real-world queries from the DBpedia query log.

Einstein's equations in vacuum spacetimes with two spacelike killing vectors are explored using affine projection tensor geometry. By doing a semi-conformal transformation on the metric, a new "fiducial" geometry is constructed using a projection tensor fields. This fiducial geometry provides coordinate independent information about the underlying structure of the spacetime without the use of an explicit form of the metric tensor.

Ninho vazio (NV) corresponde ao período em que os filhos deixam a casa dos pais para se lançar a novos projetos. Já Síndrome do Ninho Vazio (SNV) é o termo comumente utilizado para se referir ao sofrimento emocional dos pais associado a esse período da vida. Objetivo: contribuir para a identificação e caracterização da Síndrome do Ninho Vazio em jogadores patológicos. O estudo baseouse na comparação entre um grupo de jogadores patológicos cujos filhos já tinham saído de casa (grupo NV; n=23), e outro cujos filhos ainda moravam com os pais (grupo de comparação; n=23), quanto às variáveis sociodemográficas, comportamento de jogo, comorbidades psiquiátricas, aspectos emocionais e adequação social. A intensidade da SNV foi avaliada por meio de entrevista semiestruturada. Potenciais diferenças de gênero também foram exploradas. Não houve diferenças significativas entre os grupos NV e de comparação em nenhuma das variáveis estudadas com exceção da condição econômica, melhor no grupo de NV, possivelmente, em função do menor número de moradores na casa. No grupo NV (n=23), houve associação significativa entre a idade que o(a) jogador(a) tinha quando o(a) filho(a) deixou a casa e a idade de início dos problemas com o jogo (r=0,630; P<0,001) e a idade de procura por tratamento (r=0,681; P<0,001). Adicionalmente, observouse associação entre intensidade da SNV e idade de procura por tratamento (r=0,435; P=0,038) e também entre intensidade da SNV e gravidade do jogo patológico (r=0,610; P<0,001) medida pelos critérios do DSMIV TR. Em relação ao gênero, percebeuse que as jogadoras (n=16), em comparação aos jogadores (n=7), apresentaram maior intensidade da SNV e maior sintomatologia depressiva e ansiosa, indicando que o sofrimento na saída dos filhos de casa é maior entre as mulheres jogadoras. A análise qualitativa demonstrou que 61% dos jogadores patológicos relataram sofrer com o ninho vazio, com menção a sentimentos negativos, como tristeza e depressão após a saída de casa dos filhos. Jogadores patológicos, ainda, relacionaram a saída dos filhos da casa com o comportamento do aumento de jogo, diminuição de jogo ou busca por tratamento. Estes resultados sugerem a necessidade de estudos com amostras maiores para uma compreensão mais ampla do impacto da Síndrome do Ninho Vazio no comportamento de jogadores patológicos, particularmente, entre mulheres jogadoras / Empty Nest (NV) is the period when the children leave the family home to launch new projects. Empty Nest Syndrome (SNV) is the term commonly used to refer to parents emotional distress associated with this period of life. The purpose of this work is to contribute to the identification and characterization of the empty nest syndrome in pathological gamblers by comparing a group of pathological gamblers, whose children have already left home (NV group; n= 23), with another whose children still live with them at home (comparison group; n=23), by looking at sociodemographic variables, gambling behavior, psychiatric comorbidities, emotional aspects and social adequacy. The intensity of SNV was evaluated through semistructured interviews. Potential gender differences were also explored. There were no significant differences between the NV group and the comparison group except for economic status, higher in the NV group, possibly due to the lower number of household members. In the NV group (n=23), there was a significant association between the age of the gambler when the child left home and the age of onset of gambling problems (r=0,630; P<0,001) and the age of seeking treatment (r=0,681; P<0,001). Additionally, we observed an association between SNV intensity and the age of seeking treatment (r=0,435; P=0,038) and also between SNV intensity and the severity of pathological gambling (r=0,610; P<0,001), as measured by the number of positive criteria in DSMIVTR. Comparing genders, we observed that female gamblers (n=16), showed higher SNV intensity and more depression and anxiety symptoms compared to male gamblers (n=7) indicating that the suffering caused by their children leaving home is higher among female gamblers. The qualitative analysis showed that 61% of pathological gamblers reported suffering with empty nest, with negative feelings, sadness and depression after their children left home. Pathological gamblers also related their children leaving home whit increased gambling behavior, decreased gambling behavior or treatment seeking. These results suggest the need for studies with larger samples to broaden the understanding of the impact of empty nest syndrome in the behavior of pathological gamblers, particularly among female gamblers

No sistema hidrotérmico de potência brasileiro predomina a utilização de fontes hidráulicas que correspondem à cerca de 92% da geração de energia. Assim, os reservatórios das usinas hidroelétricas assumem o importante papel de reguladores das vazões de muitos rios. O objetivo do controle de cheias é regular estas vazões evitando danos à própria usina, às regiões a jusante e às cidades ribeirinhas. As técnicas de controle de cheias em usinas hidroelétricas baseiam-se em alocação de volumes vazios nos reservatórios, os chamados volumes de espera, a fim de amortecer futuras cheias. Porém estas técnicas necessitam de profundos estudos e análises, pois a permanência destes volumes vazios prejudica a geração de energia. Neste trabalho faz-se o estudo de quatro metodologias para a alocação do volume de espera, algumas entre as mais utilizadas e outras inovadoras, as quais são: (i) Método da Curva Volume X Duração, o primeiro método aplicado no setor elétrico brasileiro; (ii) Método da Curva Volume X Duração por Janelas, que introduz o conceito de janelas aplicados ao método anterior; (iii) Método das Trajetórias Críticas, atualmente muito aplicado no setor elétrico brasileiro e que se baseia em um algoritmo recursivo; (iv) Método das Equações Diferencias Estocásticas, que modela a onda de cheia como um modelo de difusão de Markov. As metodologias são aplicadas a usinas hidroelétricas do Sistema Hidroelétrico Brasileiro e os resultados são comparados, considerando o impacto causado pela alocação dos volumes de espera à geração de energia. / In the Brazilian hydrothermal power system the use of hydropower corresponds to about 92% of the total energy generation. Hence the reservoirs of the hydroelectric power plants assume the important role of regulating the water flow of many rivers. The objective of flood control is to regulate the power plants releases preventing damages to the plants themselves, to downstream regions and to marginal cities. The food control techniques in hydroelectric power plants are based on the allocation of empty volumes in the reservoirs, in order to accommodate future water inflow peaks. As the maintenance of these empty volumes harms the energy generation, the techniques applied to their determination need careful studies and analyses. In this work four methodologies to specify the needed empty volumes are investigated: (i) Method of Curve Volume X Duration, the first method applied in the Brazilian Power System; (ii) Method of Curve Volume X Duration by Windows which applies the concept of time windows to the method (i); (iii) Method of the Critical Trajectories, currently very applied in the Brazilian Power System, which is based on a recursive algorithm; (iv) Method of the Stochastic Differentiate Equations which shapes the water inflows peaks as a Markov Diffusion Model. The methodologies are applied to hydroelectric plants of the Brazilian Hydroelectric System, determining different empty volumes. The impacts of these different empty volumes on the energy generation are evaluated throughout simulation studies.

As Zonas Especiais de Interesse Social (ZEIS) tem como objetivos primordiais reconhecer a diversidade de ocupações existentes, inserindo a cidade informal à cidade formal, e combatera ociosidade dos lotes não edificados ou desocupados, redirecionando-os para fins sociais. O instrumento consta no Estatuto da Cidade e foi incorporado à legislação brasileira em 2001 na tentativa de frear, ou mesmo reverter, processos excludentes e socioespacialmente segregatórios provocados por interesses particulares em torno da propriedade da terra dentro de um Estado patrimonialista. Em Fortaleza, apesar de o instrumento constar no Plano Diretor Participativo do município (PDPFor/2009), na prática ele não é aplicado. E desde seu trâmite dentro do plano até os dias atuais, muitas de suas áreas originalmente destinadas à oferta de habitação de interesse social (HIS) já foram comprometidas. Assim, para progredir na implementação do instrumento, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo geral compreender o alcance e os entraves da ZEIS como ferramenta transformadora da realidade urbana municipal a partir do estudo de caso da ZEIS de Vazio em Fortaleza. A hipótese levantada é a de que não obstante sua regulamentação técnica e jurídica, não existe em Fortaleza uma correlação de forças no trato político da questão fundiária que permita a aplicação da ZEIS na ótica da democratização urbana. A dissertação se estrutura em três capítulos. No primeiro se mostrará a ideia do instrumento em nível federal, conforme descrito nos documentos oficias e construído dentro da conjuntura político-urbana daquela época,e os entraves mais comuns que esse vem encontrando nos diversos contextos municipais em que foi aplicado. No segundo se abordará a lógica de formação e consolidação de Fortaleza e analisará como se deu o ingresso da ZEIS na legislação urbana dessa cidade. No terceiro se focará na modalidade de vazio da ferramenta para uma melhor visualização dos conflitos de interesses, dos protagonistas envolvidos e de como o poder público se posiciona e intermedeia as diferentes posições dos grupos sociais. Ao final se conclui que apesar de a ZEIS em Fortaleza não cumprir seus objetivos segundo os preceitos da Reforma Urbana ou como muitos esperavam durante o desenvolvimento do PDPFor, ela possuiria uma utilidade que não deve ser ignorada. / The Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS) has as main objectives to recognize the diversity of existing occupations, including the informal city into the formal city, and combating the idleness of uninhabited or unoccupied lots, redirecting them for social purposes. The instrument is included in the City Statute and was incorporated in the Brazilian legislation in 2001 in an attempt to reduce, or even reverse, exclusionary and sociospatial segregative processes provoked by private interests in land ownership within a patrimonial state. In Fortaleza, although the instrument appears in the Participative Master Plan of the municipality (PDPFor/2009), in practice it is not applied. And since its developing into the plan until the present day, many of its areas originally intended for the provision of social housing (his) have already been compromised. Thus, in order to progress in the implementation of the instrument, the present research has as general objective to understand the scope and the obstacles of the ZEIS as a transforming tool of the municipal urban reality from the case study of ZEIS of Empty Area in Fortaleza. The raised hypothesis is that, despite its technical and legal regulations, there is still no correlation of forces in the political treatment of the land issue which allows the application of ZEIS in the perspective of urban democratization in Fortaleza. The dissertation is structured in three chapters. In the first one, the idea of the instrument at the federal leval will be shown, as described in the official documents and developed within the political-urban conjuncture of the time, and the most common obstacles that it has been encountering in the various municipal contexts in which it has been applied. In the second one, the logic of formation and consolidation of Fortaleza will be discussed and it will be analyzed how the entrance of ZEIS in the urban legislation of that city occurred. In the third one, the emptiness modality of the tool will be focused for a better visualization of the conflicts of interest, the protagonists involved and how the public power positions itself and mediates the different positions of the social groups. At the end it is concluded that although ZEIS in Fortaleza does not fulfill its objectives according to the precepts of the Urban Reform or as many expected during the development of the PDPFor, it would have a utility that should not be ignored.

As Zonas Especiais de Interesse Social (ZEIS) tem como objetivos primordiais reconhecer a diversidade de ocupações existentes, inserindo a cidade informal à cidade formal, e combatera ociosidade dos lotes não edificados ou desocupados, redirecionando-os para fins sociais. O instrumento consta no Estatuto da Cidade e foi incorporado à legislação brasileira em 2001 na tentativa de frear, ou mesmo reverter, processos excludentes e socioespacialmente segregatórios provocados por interesses particulares em torno da propriedade da terra dentro de um Estado patrimonialista. Em Fortaleza, apesar de o instrumento constar no Plano Diretor Participativo do município (PDPFor/2009), na prática ele não é aplicado. E desde seu trâmite dentro do plano até os dias atuais, muitas de suas áreas originalmente destinadas à oferta de habitação de interesse social (HIS) já foram comprometidas. Assim, para progredir na implementação do instrumento, a presente pesquisa tem como objetivo geral compreender o alcance e os entraves da ZEIS como ferramenta transformadora da realidade urbana municipal a partir do estudo de caso da ZEIS de Vazio em Fortaleza. A hipótese levantada é a de que não obstante sua regulamentação técnica e jurídica, não existe em Fortaleza uma correlação de forças no trato político da questão fundiária que permita a aplicação da ZEIS na ótica da democratização urbana. A dissertação se estrutura em três capítulos. No primeiro se mostrará a ideia do instrumento em nível federal, conforme descrito nos documentos oficias e construído dentro da conjuntura político-urbana daquela época,e os entraves mais comuns que esse vem encontrando nos diversos contextos municipais em que foi aplicado. No segundo se abordará a lógica de formação e consolidação de Fortaleza e analisará como se deu o ingresso da ZEIS na legislação urbana dessa cidade. No terceiro se focará na modalidade de vazio da ferramenta para uma melhor visualização dos conflitos de interesses, dos protagonistas envolvidos e de como o poder público se posiciona e intermedeia as diferentes posições dos grupos sociais. Ao final se conclui que apesar de a ZEIS em Fortaleza não cumprir seus objetivos segundo os preceitos da Reforma Urbana ou como muitos esperavam durante o desenvolvimento do PDPFor, ela possuiria uma utilidade que não deve ser ignorada. / The Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS) has as main objectives to recognize the diversity of existing occupations, including the informal city into the formal city, and combating the idleness of uninhabited or unoccupied lots, redirecting them for social purposes. The instrument is included in the City Statute and was incorporated in the Brazilian legislation in 2001 in an attempt to reduce, or even reverse, exclusionary and sociospatial segregative processes provoked by private interests in land ownership within a patrimonial state. In Fortaleza, although the instrument appears in the Participative Master Plan of the municipality (PDPFor/2009), in practice it is not applied. And since its developing into the plan until the present day, many of its areas originally intended for the provision of social housing (his) have already been compromised. Thus, in order to progress in the implementation of the instrument, the present research has as general objective to understand the scope and the obstacles of the ZEIS as a transforming tool of the municipal urban reality from the case study of ZEIS of Empty Area in Fortaleza. The raised hypothesis is that, despite its technical and legal regulations, there is still no correlation of forces in the political treatment of the land issue which allows the application of ZEIS in the perspective of urban democratization in Fortaleza. The dissertation is structured in three chapters. In the first one, the idea of the instrument at the federal leval will be shown, as described in the official documents and developed within the political-urban conjuncture of the time, and the most common obstacles that it has been encountering in the various municipal contexts in which it has been applied. In the second one, the logic of formation and consolidation of Fortaleza will be discussed and it will be analyzed how the entrance of ZEIS in the urban legislation of that city occurred. In the third one, the emptiness modality of the tool will be focused for a better visualization of the conflicts of interest, the protagonists involved and how the public power positions itself and mediates the different positions of the social groups. At the end it is concluded that although ZEIS in Fortaleza does not fulfill its objectives according to the precepts of the Urban Reform or as many expected during the development of the PDPFor, it would have a utility that should not be ignored.