In medizinischen Forschungsprojekten besteht ein großer Bedarf an effizienter und einheitlicher Verwaltung sowie langfristiger Nachverfolgung von Probanden. Dieser Bedarf entsteht in Deutschland unter anderem aus der enger werdenden Verbindung von Versorgung und Forschung, der zunehmenden Vernetzung der medizinischen Forschung, sowie der Etablierung neuer Einrichtungen, wie beispielsweise Biobanken an Universitätskliniken. Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation wurde am Beispiel der Universitätsmedizin Göttingen untersucht, ob die Einführung eines Probandenmanagementsystems den Bedarf von Forschern an Effizienz, Einheitlichkeit und Langfristigkeit erfüllt. Im ersten Schritt wurde eine Anforderungsanalyse durchgeführt. Grundlage dieser Analyse bildeten 17 Interviews mit Stakeholdern der Universitätsmedizin Göttingen. Darunter befanden sich Ärzte, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter, Studienassistenten sowie IT-Verantwortliche. Anhand der Interviews wurden 16 Ziele an ein Probandenmanagementsystem formuliert. Auf Basis dieser Ziele wurden neun Szenarien modelliert, welche Interaktionen mit dem Probandenmanagementsystem beschreiben. Ziele und Szenarien sowie eine Literaturrecherche dienten anschließend zur Identifizierung der lösungsorientierten Anforderungen. Insgesamt wurden 30 funktionale Anforderungen, sieben Qualitätsanforderungen und neun Randbedingungen identifiziert. Die identifizierten Anforderungen bildeten den Ausgangspunkt zur Entwicklung des prototypischen Probandenmanagementsystems. Durch den entwickelten Prototyp werden 23 funktionale Anforderungen, zwei Qualitätsanforderungen sowie vier Randbedingungen direkt erfüllt. Die übrigen Anforderungen konnten aufgrund ihrer Komplexität oder wegen fehlender organisatorischer Randbedingungen nicht erfüllt werden. In der nachfolgenden Validierung wurde geprüft, inwieweit das Probandenmanagementsystem die Erwartungen der Stakeholder erfüllt. Um dies zu untersuchen wurde ein Usability-Test mit zehn Stakeholdern durchgeführt. Insgesamt bewerteten die Stakeholder das entwickelte System sehr positiv. Alle Stakeholder brachten im Anschluss an den Usability-Tests den Wunsch zum Ausdruck, das Probandenmanagementsystem für ihre Forschungsprojekte zeitnah nutzen zu können. Aktuell wird das System in drei Forschungsprojekten an der Universitätsmedizin Göttingen eingesetzt. In dieser Dissertation konnte so gezeigt werden, dass mit der Einführung eines Probandenmanagementsystems der Bedarf an effizienter und einheitlicher Verwaltung sowie langfristiger Nachverfolgung von Probanden erfüllt wird.

Riksbyggen, one of Sweden’s largest real estate companies, are planning to build a new residential area outside Uppsala, Sweden. Adjacent to the houses in the area, Riksbyggen are considering installing a 137 kWp photovoltaic (PV) system to supply the residents with renewable energy. In the first part of this study, the proposed PV system is analyzed based on benefits and profitability for the residents, using the software HOMER. Possibilities for including 3 kWp roof-mounted PV systems with varying azimuth as a complement to the larger system are evaluated. In the second part, options for implementing an Energy Management System (EMS) with battery storage or load shifting in the distribution grid using MATLAB. The system uses forecasting of PV generation, electricity prices and electricity demand to optimize the system control strategies. The results from the study indicate that installation of the 137 kWp PV system could lead to reduced average electricity costs of 21,1 % for the residents. If the system is completed with roof-mounted PV modules of varying azimuth for 12 % of the households in the area, the average electricity cost is reduced by 29,4 %in total. Implementing an EMS with energy storage in the distribution grid was not found to be an economically viable option, mainly due to high energy storage costs. The system control strategies can be improved by using forecasting. The economic benefits of load shifting for a single household were found to be too low to give incentive for system investment.

The DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007 showed that fully autonomous vehicles, driven by computers without human intervention on public roads, are technologically feasible with current intelligent vehicle technology [6]. Some researchers predict that within 5-20 years there will be autonomous vehicles for sale on the automobile market. Therefore, the time is right to rethink our current transportation infrastructure, which is primarily designed for human drivers, not autonomous vehicles. The Autonomous Intersection Management (AIM) project at UT Austin aims to propose a large-scale, real-time framework to be a substitute for current traffic light and stop signs. Automobiles in modern urban settings spend a lot of time idling at intersections. In 2007, US drivers wasted 4.16 billion hours of their time and 2.81 billion gallons of gas in congestion, costing a total of 87.2 billion dollars nationwide [18]. A big portion of this waste takes place at intersections. The AIM project is able to utilize the capacity of intersections to minimize time waste and fuel consumption. The fundamental idea of Autonomous Intersection management (AIM) [13] is a reservation system in which cells in space-time will be reserved by the au- tonomous vehicles based on their trajectories. An intersection manager takes care of the reservation as well as communication with the vehicles. This mechanism tries to maximize the usage of the intersection area. It ensures a collision free intersection as well. The main question of this project is what intersection control mechanism is appropriate for reducing an autonomous vehicle's waiting time and improving the throughput of the intersection. Previous work proposed the first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy in which the reservation requests are served as soon as they are received. The results of simulation show that FCFS outperforms the current traffic systems, traffic light and stop sign, by orders of magnitude. We, however, observe that FCFS performs suboptimal in certain traffic patterns that are pretty common in urban settings. In this project, first we study the limitations of FCFS, then develop a more efficient policy to alleviate these limitations. The idea that we examined is a systematic policy of granting reservations that have the objective of minimizing the cost of delaying vehicles. In an attempt to build the system in reality, we used miniature robots called Eco-be. Due to their cost and size, Eco-bes are good candidates for testing a multi-agent system with a large number of agents. In spite of the fact that the physical challenges of Eco-bes do not perfectly match those of full size autonomous vehicles, they are still useful for demonstration and education purposes as well as for the study of collisions for which experiments with full size vehicles are costly and dangerous. / text

<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <p align="left">This study focuses on the Performance Management System in the South African local government with specific emphasis on policy implementation.</p> </font></p>

There is a common acceptance that online technologies have the capacity to transform the way we learn. It appears the call for alternative modes of learning and the effective integration of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) into the regular classroom is no longer peripheral. There is sound evidence that increasingly teachers and schools are embracing the technologies available to them. This study examines the merits, barriers and issues associated with the employment of online technologies in the teaching and learning of second and foreign languages. Data is sourced from the views and opinions of five participants from a ‘brick and mortar’ school, three participants from a virtual school and the perspectives from two outside experts. The findings reveal participants show an overall satisfaction with the usefulness of online technologies. Compatible with the literature, the study shows that there are systemic factors undermining the efforts of individuals to fully utilise the technologies available to them. The overarching epistemology of this research is congruent with an Ecological model. This approach allows for a multi-level perspective of the complexity and disambiguation ICT has thrust upon educators and learners. This paper concludes with a positive view of the usefulness of online technologies and reaffirms what many researchers are claiming; most schools are only at the beginning of their ICT journey.

This study is a mixed methods investigation, based on a case study of The Ottawa Hospital’s recent and ongoing implementation of an integrated performance management system (IPMS). It is the first empirical investigation to identify the reasons why Canadian healthcare leaders choose to implement an IPMS in a hospital setting, the core components of hospital-based IPMSs, the challenges that senior leaders face when implementing such systems, and how these challenges might be mitigated to increase the likelihood of a successful implementation. Key findings include the need for senior leaders to carefully consider organizational culture prior to fully implementing an IPMS, engaging physicians early in the journey, and coordinating the implementation so that knowledge, skill, and expertise, as it relates to the IPMS, are distributed across the organization in tightly knit waves. Recommendations for future research include the development of frameworks for the design, implementation, and use of IPMSs

No description available.

Zugl.: Mannheim, Univ., Diss., 2007.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-95). Also available via the Internet.

Univ., Diss.--Hannover, 2002.