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ABSTRACT It may be of no surprise that water quality data is right-skewed, but what appears to be overlooked by some is that the arithmetic mean and standard deviation most often fail as measures of central tendency in skewed data. When using the arithmetic mean and arithmetic standard deviation with nutrient data, one standard deviation about the arithmetic mean can capture nearly all of the data and extend into negative values. Representing nutrient data this way can be misleading to viewers who are using the statistics, and making assumptions, to understand the characteristics of those waters. Through an in-depth statistical analysis of Florida's nitrogen and phosphorus data, I have found the geometric mean and multiplicative standard deviation capture a better representation of the central region of skewed data. Including the geometric mean and multiplicative standard deviation in the descriptive statistics of nutrient data is relatively simple with today's tools and helps to better describe the data. Adding these statistics can contribute to more effective understanding of nutrient concentrations, better application of data, and the development of better data-derived policy. While the suggestions of this paper are by no means original, it is with added evidence provided by the study of the skewness, distributions, and central regions of 53 nutrient data sets that I intend to help reiterate the argument that a few additional descriptive statistics can greatly empower the communication of data, and because of the ease with which they can now be calculated, there is no excuse to ignore them.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-07-27Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:08:29Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 costa_ecm_me_ilha.pdf: 1777300 bytes, checksum: f5e35375b4a1e9e034ae9b487436cef5 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O presente trabalho descreve detalhadamente uma metodologia alternativa para o cálculo dos parâmetros longitudinais e transversais de um condutor múltiplo genérico, com base na configuração de um condutor equivalente. A metodologia proposta considera precisamente o acoplamento mútuo entre os subcondutores que compões o feixe, a natureza distribuída dos parâmetros e a distribuição da corrente, uniforme ou desigual, através dos subcondutores. São calculados e analisados os parâmetros utilizando a metodologia alternativa proposta e o procedimento clássico baseado na obtenção de um condutor equivalente aplicando o conceito do Raio Médio Geométrico (RMG), para diversos condutores múltiplos, sendo eles simétricos ou não simétricos, convencionais ou não-convencionais. Posteriormente, são comparados os resultados obtidos por ambos os métodos e a partir desses é possível comprovar a eficácia da metodologia proposta e eventuais situações em que a metodologia clássica, envolvendo o conceito do RMG, apresenta algumas imprecisões derivadas da distribuição não uniforme da corrente em condutores múltiplos assimétricos ou pouco convencionais / The present work describes an alternative methodology to evaluate the longitudinal and transversal parameters of a generic bundled conductor, based on the configuration of an equivalent conductor. The proposed methodology considers precisely the mutual coupling among subconductors of the bundle, the distributed nature of parameters and the current distribution through subconductors. The parameters are calculated and analyzed using the proposed alternative methodology and the classic procedure, based on equivalent conductor applying the concept of Geometric Mean Radius (GMR), for several bundled conductors, symmetric or nonsymmetric, conventional or non-conventional. Subsequently, the obtained results are compared to both methods and then it is possible to verify the efficacy of the proposed methodology and eventual situations where the classic methodology, based on RMG concept, presents inaccuracies due to the non-uniform distribution of the current in non-symmetric or non-conventional bundled conductors

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Yes / Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is a proactive, highly structured, and systematic approach for failure analysis. It has been also applied as a risk assessment tool, by ranking potential risks based on the estimation of Risk Priority Numbers (RPNs). This paper develops an improved FMEA methodology for strategic risk analysis. The proposed approach combines the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique with the Exponential and Weighted Geometric Mean method (EWGM) to support risk analysis. AHP is applied to estimate the weights of three risk factors: Severity (S), Occurrence (O) and Detection (D), which integrate the RPN for each risk. The EWGM method is applied for ranking RPNs. Combining AHP with EWGM allows avoiding repetition of FMEA results. The results of the developed methodology reveal that duplication of RPNs has been decreased, and facilitating an effective risk ranking by offering a unique value for each risk. The proposed methodology focuses not only on high severity values for risk ranking but also it considers other risk factors (O and D), resulting in an enhanced risk assessment process. Furthermore, the weights of the three risk factors are considered. In this way, the developed methodology offers unique value for each risk in a simple way which makes the risk assessment results more accurate. This methodology provides a practical and systematic approach to support decision-makers in assessing and ranking risks that could affect long-term strategy implementation. The methodology was validated through the case study of a power plant in the Middle East, assessing 84 risks within 9 risk categories. The case study revealed that top management should pay more attention to key risks associated with electricity price, gas emissions, lost-time injuries, bad odor, and production. / This research has been supported by Hashemite University, Jordan.

Yes / Risk Management is one of the most relevant approaches and systematic application of strategies, procedures and practices management that have been introduced in literature to identifying and analysing risks which exist through the whole life of a product or a process. As a quality management tool, the novelty of this paper suggests a modified Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) for understanding the non-technical risk comprehensively, and to attain a systemic methodology by decomposing the risk for nine risk categories including an appropriate 84 Risk Indicators (RI's) within all those categories through the Life Cycle (LC) stages of power plants. These risk categories have been identified as: economic risks, environmental and safety health risks, social risks, technological risks, customer/demand risks, supply chain risks, internal and operational business process risks, human resources risks and management risks. These indicators are collected from literatures. The enhanced FMEA has combined the exponential and the weighted geometric mean (WGM) to calculate the Exponential Weighted Geometric Mean-RPN (EWGM-RPN). The EWGM-RPN can be used to evaluate the risk level, after which the high-risk areas can be determined. Subsequently, effective actions either preventive or corrective can be taken in time to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. However, in this paper the FMEA will not adapt an action plan. Due to that, all RPN's will be considered depending on the point scale (1 to 5) afterward, the results will be combined and extended later with AHP. This developed methodology is able to boost effective decision- making about risks, improve the awareness towards the risk management at power plants, and assist the top management to have an acceptable and preferable understanding of the organisation than lower level managers do who are close to the day-to-day (tactical plan). Additionally, this will support the organisation to develop strategic plans which are for long term. And the essential part of applying this methodology is the economic benefit. Also, this paper includes developed sustainability perspective indicators with a new fourth pillar, which is the technological dimension. The results of the analysis show that the potential strategic makers should pay special attention to the environmental and internal and operational business process risks. The developed methodology will be applied and validated for different power plants in the Middle East. An expanded validation is required to completely prove drawbacks and benefits after completing the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model. / Hashemite University, Jordan

Orientador: Sérgio Kurokawa / Banca: Afonso José do Prado / Banca: Lourenço Matias / Resumo: O presente trabalho descreve detalhadamente uma metodologia alternativa para o cálculo dos parâmetros longitudinais e transversais de um condutor múltiplo genérico, com base na configuração de um condutor equivalente. A metodologia proposta considera precisamente o acoplamento mútuo entre os subcondutores que compões o feixe, a natureza distribuída dos parâmetros e a distribuição da corrente, uniforme ou desigual, através dos subcondutores. São calculados e analisados os parâmetros utilizando a metodologia alternativa proposta e o procedimento clássico baseado na obtenção de um condutor equivalente aplicando o conceito do Raio Médio Geométrico (RMG), para diversos condutores múltiplos, sendo eles simétricos ou não simétricos, convencionais ou não-convencionais. Posteriormente, são comparados os resultados obtidos por ambos os métodos e a partir desses é possível comprovar a eficácia da metodologia proposta e eventuais situações em que a metodologia clássica, envolvendo o conceito do RMG, apresenta algumas imprecisões derivadas da distribuição não uniforme da corrente em condutores múltiplos assimétricos ou pouco convencionais / Abstract: The present work describes an alternative methodology to evaluate the longitudinal and transversal parameters of a generic bundled conductor, based on the configuration of an equivalent conductor. The proposed methodology considers precisely the mutual coupling among subconductors of the bundle, the distributed nature of parameters and the current distribution through subconductors. The parameters are calculated and analyzed using the proposed alternative methodology and the classic procedure, based on equivalent conductor applying the concept of Geometric Mean Radius (GMR), for several bundled conductors, symmetric or nonsymmetric, conventional or non-conventional. Subsequently, the obtained results are compared to both methods and then it is possible to verify the efficacy of the proposed methodology and eventual situations where the classic methodology, based on RMG concept, presents inaccuracies due to the non-uniform distribution of the current in non-symmetric or non-conventional bundled conductors / Mestre

Optimal portfolios have historically been computed using standard deviation as a risk measure.However, extreme market events have become the rule rather than the exception. To capturetail risk, investors have started to look for alternative risk measures such as Value-at-Risk andConditional Value-at-Risk. This research analyzes the financial model referred to as Markowitz 2.0 and provides historical context and perspective to the model and makes a mathematicalformulation. Moreover, practical implementation is presented and an optimizer that capturesthe risk of non-extreme events is constructed, which meets the needs of more customized investment decisions, based on investment preferences. Optimal portfolios are generated and anefficient frontier is made. The results obtained are then compared with those obtained throughthe mean-variance optimization framework. As concluded from the data, the optimal portfoliowith the optimal weights generated performs better regarding expected portfolio return relativeto the risk level for the investment.

Yes / Risk Management is one of the most relevant approaches and systematic applications of strategies, procedures and practices management that have been introduced in literatures for identifying and analysing risks which exist through the whole life of a product ,a process or services. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose a risk assessment model that will be implemented to the energy sector, particularly to power plants. This model combines the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique with a new enhanced Balance Score Card (BSC). AHP is constructed to determine the weights and the priorities for all perspectives and risk indicators that involved in the BSC. The novelty in this paper is not only in using the BSC for risk assessment, but also, in developing a new BSC with six perspectives, which are sustainability perspective; economic; learning and growth; internal and operational business process; supply chain and customer/demand perspective. Another three contributions of this paper are firstly, including the sustainability dimension in BSC, and covering nine risk categories, which comprise 84 risk indicators that have been distributed across the six risk BSC perspectives. Secondly, assessing the non-technical risks in power plants and finally, this research will concentrate on the strategic level instead of the operational level where the majority of researches focus on latter but the former is far less researched. The created model will provide an effective measurement for the risks particularly, in the power plants sector. The results of this study demonstrate that the supply chain risks perspective is the keystone for the decision making process. Furthermore, these risk indicators with the new structure of BSC with six perspectives, help in achieving the organisation mission and vision in addition to affording a robust risk assessment model. The inputs of this model are composed from a previous stage using a modified Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) (which has been used the Exponential Weighted Geometric Mean (EWGM)) to understand and analyse all risks, after which, the results of the developed FMEA which are the Risk Priority Numbers (RPN’s), have been used to build the AHP-BSC risk model. These risks are collected with difficulty from various literatures. This study will be validated in the next stage in power plants in the Middle East. / Hashemite University, Jordan