Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: l. 93-94.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / Cocaine use among opioid dependent persons is common, with an estimated 40 to 70% of those seeking treatment for opioid dependence, also using cocaine (Sullivan et al., 2011 ). The effects of cocaine use on treatment outcomes for those seeking medication assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid dependence are not well understood. Buprenorphine, prescribed under the brand name Suboxone, has recently emerged as a convenient, effective method of MAT. The Facilitated Access to Substance Abuse Treatment with Prevention And Treatment of HIV (FAST PATH) program at Boston Medical Center, is a research study to provide substance abuse treatment along with primary care and HIV risk-reduction counseling to those afflicted with these epidemics. The objective of this study was to determine the association of cocaine use with treatment retention and opioid abstinence at six months for patients receiving buprenorphine in the FAST PATH program. A prospective cohort study was conducted on 116 patients enrolled in the FAST PATH program through 02/01/2012. Assessments were conducted at baseline and six months to evaluate the association between baseline cocaine use and treatment retention as well as opioid abstinence at six months. Baseline cocaine use was measured by either any urine toxicology screen positive for cocaine prior to study enrollment or 30 day self-reported cocaine use on the initial assessment. Of the 116 participants, 39% were positive for cocaine use at baseline and 52% were HIV positive. Baseline cocaine use had no effect significant on treatment retention or opioid abstinence at six months. Among all the participant characteristics measured, there were no significant differences between the cocaine positive (n=45) and cocaine negative (n=71) groups. In adjusted analysis, age was the only covariate which was significant at predicting the odds of treatment retention or opioid abstinence with a 1.11 (p-value = 0.0003) and 1.08 (p-value = 0.02) greater odds of each, respectively. Although cocaine use did not affect the dependent variables, integrated substance abuse and primary care clinics utilizing buprenorphine are a rich area of future research. Specifically, subsequent studies should determine how varied groups of opioid dependent persons perform within this framework, and the underlying characteristics moderating their outcomes.

This thesis describes the design of a data structure for use with Digitised Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) in Terrain Reference Navigation (TRN) systems. The data structure is based on a variant of quad-tree and oct-tree data structures to provide an efficient representation of terrain in terms of storage requirements and acccss operations. These data structure are applied to flight path planning operations in mission management applications. The algorithms developed for flight path planning have becri implemented in the C programming language for a standard PC. Current research in TRN systems is reviewed and attention is given to the use of hierarchical data structures to cope with the potentially large data base needed for DTED files. Data structure combining quad-trees and oct-trees are developed with an emphasis on data reduction using pointerless trees and the use of locational codes to provide straightforward mapping between quad-trees and oct-trees, in other words, between two-dimensional co-ordinates and three-dimensional co-ordinates. Analysis of these algorithms is described for two DTED files to illustrate storage improvements and to verify a set of database access operations. These data structures are applied to problems of flight path planning where the navigation space comprises objects above a specific altitude and this three-dimensional space is searched for a flight path which avoids the obstacles and satisfies specific operational criteria. Algorithms are developed to extract a visibility graph from the terrain database and to determine the preferred flight path from a set of paths which satisfy defined constraints. Several search techniques are developed which exploit the efficiency of the quad-tree and oct-tree data structures. These methods are extended to real-time flight-path planning where predicted times for access operations are used to direct flight path extraction by varying the tree resolution during computation of the flight path. A comprehensive set of results are provided to illustrate: the storage efficiency of quad-tree and oct-tree data structures the application of pyramid structures to represent navigation space analysis of the time to compute the visibility graph and to extract flight paths integration of these methods with a real-time mission management simulation on a PC The thesis draws conclusions on the efficiency of these techniques for the represcntation of DTEDs and to access objects in TRN systems. It is observed that the use of hierarchical data structures in the form of quad-trees and oct-trees offers significant improvement in accessing DTEDS, for future use in TRN systems. The thesis concludes by outlining areas of further work where the techniques can be further &N, cloped for applications in mission management and navigation using DTED files.

Orientador: Eleitério Fernando da Silva Prado / Banca: Eduardo Strachman / Banca: Dimária Silva e Meirelles / Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar como o processo de inovações tecnológicas é tratado pela Teoria dos Sistemas Complexos. A abordagem neoclássica tradicional, ao partir de pressupostos bastante restritivos sobre os agentes e os mercados, não é capaz de fornecer explicações plausíveis aos vários problemas econômicos da vida real. Ao desconsiderar a dinâmica dos fenômenos econômicos, essa abordagem foi incapaz de incorporar os aspectos do processo de inovação e mudança tecnológica. A abordagem evolucionária, nesse sentido, ao considerar a racionalidade limitada, incerteza e heterogeneidade presente em ambientes que exibem inovação, foi capaz de fornecer um tratamento mais próximo da realidade. A inovação é, então, entendida como uma mudança descontínua que altera as condições estruturais gerando desenvolvimento, progresso e evolução no sistema. Já abordagem dos sistemas complexos, ao apresentar um arcabouço não reducionista e que se fundamenta sobre uma perspectiva evolucionária e sistêmica, concebe a economia como um sistema composto por agentes heterogêneos que interagem entre si. Apesar do ambiente de incerteza nas decisões tomadas, os agentes procuram se adaptar às informações recebidas do meio e se auto-organizarem gerando com isso novos padrões de auto-ordenamento e estruturas emergentes. A modelagem, nesse sentido, tem por principal objetivo descobrir as propriedades emergentes resultantes da interação entre os agentes no sistema. Por fim chega-se a conclusão de que as inovações tecnológicas apresentaram resultados mais satisfatórios e mais condizentes quando analisadas dentro dessa perspectiva agent-based. / Abstract: The purpose of this dissertation is to discuss how processes of technological innovation are analyzed by Complex Systems Theory. Traditional neoclassical approach is unable to provide plausible explanations of a number of real world economic issues, as it starts from very restrictive assumptions on agents and markets. By neglecting economic phenomena dynamics, it has been unable of comprehend some aspects of innovation and technical change processes under its purview. Evolutionary economics, by taking issues such as bounded rationality, uncertainty and heterogeneity in environments with innovation, has been better positioned to afford a closer-to-reality treatment. In this approach, innovation is seen as a disruptive change that alters the system's structural conditions, generating development, progress, and evolution. Accordingly, the complex systems approach, by furnishing a non-reductionist framework and in being supported on an evolutionary and systemic perspective, conceives the economy as a system composed by interactions among heterogeneous agents. Nevertheless uncertainty in the decision-making process, yet the agents endeavors to adapt to information coming from the environment and to self-organize. In doing so, they generate new patterns of self-ordained emerging structures. Modeling techniques, in this sense, aim primarily to uncover emerging properties resulting from agents' interaction in the system. The main conclusion is that technological innovations are more successfully and more cogently described when analyzed from this agent-based perspective. / Mestre

The use of expensive and highly specialized equipment in any industry is only advisable if the eost of the equipment can be justified by a sufficiently large output. The greater the output, the smaller will be the cost of the equipment to be borne by each unit. Thus, once such equipment has been purchased, management endeavours to maintain output at a maximum in order to reduce unit costs or to increase profits. It is for this reason that airline managements continually endeavour to increase the utilization of jet aircraft. By increasing the number of revenue flying hours only one hour each week on one jet aircraft, an airline will realize an additional net contribution to overhead (or profits) of approximately $60,000 per year. One method of increasing utilization is to decrease the downtime of the aircraft for maintenance purposes. This requires a reduction of the total elapsed time of the maintenance check. The critical path technique has found wide application in solving the general problem of reducing the time required to complete a project which consists of many inter-related jobs. For example, the technique has been used to reduce the time required for constructing a building, for completing the periodic overhaul of a chemical plant, and for completing the Polaris Missile Development Program. It was therefore felt that the critical path technique might be of use in solving this problem of increasing the utilization of jet aircraft. This thesis, based on the results of a study carried out at Canadian Pacific Air Lines during the months of May through August, 1963, describes the various ways in which the technique can be of use in solving this problem. It was found that the technique did have a wide applicability. In the initial period of application, it would be of great value as a tool for analyzing the problems of the check. It can be used both to point out the jobs or chains of jobs which prohibit the reduction of the check time and also to direct the revision of the scheduling of these jobs in such a way that the elapsed time is reduced. This reduction of elapsed time will have the effect of increasing the number of jobs which must be completed at the earliest possible time if the check completion time is to be a minimum. As a result there will be a greater need to use the technique both for scheduling and monitoring all the jobs of the check. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

We propose a new dynamically feasible trajectory generation algorithm that incorporates sternward motion for unmanned surface vehicles. This work is motivated by riverine applications where the operating environment is large and poorly known. We extend a navigation approach for forward path planning into a more versatile framework that includes safe and dynamically feasible backward trajectories. We pose the backward trajectory generation problem as a finite-horizon optimal control problem and transform it into a nonlinear programming problem by utilizing the direct shooting method. The nonlinear programming problem is solved using the Hooke-Jeeves numerical algorithm. We provide successful simulation and field-trial results that demonstrate the performance of backward path planning algorithm. / Master of Science

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The vertical take-off and landing capabilities of quadrotors, and their maneuverability has contributed towards their recent popularity. They are widely used for indoors applications, where robust control strategies and automation of mission planning is necessary. In this thesis, a mathematical model for a quadrotor is derived using Newton's and Euler's laws. The model is linearized around hover and optimal control theory is used to derive a standard linear quadratic regulator controller for trajectory following. A feedorward of the tracking error is introduced to the standard LQR to improve its transient response. The performance of the proposed controller is compared with a conventional PID controller and the standard LQR controller for a variety of trajectories. The proposed controller produced a faster transient response with better disturbance rejection. A* algorithm is used to generate collisionree paths for the quadrotor where the proposed LQR is used to follow the trajectory.

No description available.

No description available.