Evaluating bound-constrained minimization software

Bound-constrained minimization is a subject of active research. To assess the performance of existent solvers, numerical evaluations and comparisons are carried on. Arbitrary decisions that may have a crucial effect on the conclusions of numerical experiments are highlighted in the present work. As a result, a detailed evaluation based on performance profiles is applied to the comparison of bound-constrained minimization solvers. Extensive numerical results are presented and analyzed.

EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF A CASTOR-OIL BASED FORMULATION IN LIMITING PESTICIDE RESIDUES IN STRAWBERRY CROPS

A study was made to evaluate the effect of a castor oil-based detergent on strawberry crops treated with different classes of pesticides, namely deltamethrin, folpet, tebuconazole, abamectin and mancozeb, in a controlled environment. Experimental crops of greenhouse strawberries were cultivated in five different ways with control groups using pesticides and castor oil-based detergent. The results showed that the group 2, which was treated with castor oil-based detergent, presented the lowest amount of pesticide residues and the highest quality of fruit produced.

A General Latent Class Model for Performance Evaluation of Diagnostic Tests in the Absence of a Gold Standard: An Application to Chagas Disease

We propose a new general Bayesian latent class model for evaluation of the performance of multiple diagnostic tests in situations in which no gold standard test exists based on a computationally intensive approach. The modeling represents an interesting and suitable alternative to models with complex structures that involve the general case of several conditionally independent diagnostic tests, covariates, and strata with different disease prevalences. The technique of stratifying the population according to different disease prevalence rates does not add further marked complexity to the modeling, but it makes the model more flexible and interpretable. To illustrate the general model proposed, we evaluate the performance of six diagnostic screening tests for Chagas disease considering some epidemiological variables. Serology at the time of donation (negative, positive, inconclusive) was considered as a factor of stratification in the model. The general model with stratification of the population performed better in comparison with its concurrents without stratification. The group formed by the testing laboratory Biomanguinhos FIOCRUZ-kit (c-ELISA and rec-ELISA) is the best option in the confirmation process by presenting false-negative rate of 0.0002% from the serial scheme. We are 100% sure that the donor is healthy when these two tests have negative results and he is chagasic when they have positive results.

Qualifying instrument for evaluation of food and nutritional care in hospital

Establishing criteria for hospital nutrition care ensures that quality care is delivered to patients. The responsibility of the Hospital Food and Nutrition Service (HFNS) is not always well defined, despite efforts to establish guidelines for patient clinical nutrition practice. This study describes the elaboration of an Instrument for Evaluation of Food and Nutritional Care (IEFNC) aimed at directing the actions of the Hospital Food and Nutrition Service. This instrument was qualified by means of a comparative analysis of the categories related to hospital food and nutritional care, published in the literature. Elaboration of the IEFNC comprised the following stages: (a) a survey of databases and documents for selection of the categories to be used in nutrition care evaluation, (b) a study of the institutional procedures for nutrition practice at two Brazilian hospitals, in order to provide a description of the sequence of actions that should be taken by the HFNS as well as other services participating in nutrition care, (c) design of the IEFNC based on the categories published in the literature, adapted to the sequence of actions observed in the routines of the hospitals under study, (d) application of the questionnaire at two different hospitals that was mentioned in the item (b), in order to assess the time spent on its application, the difficulties in phrasing the questions, and the coverage of the instrument, and (e) finalization of the instrument. The IEFNC consists of 50 open and closed questions on two areas of food and nutritional care in hospital: inpatient nutritional care and food service quality. It deals with the characterization and structure of hospitals and their HFNS, the actions concerning the patients' nutritional evaluation and monitoring, the meal production system, and the hospital diets. "This questionnaire is a tool that can be seen as a portrait of the structure and characteristics of the HFNS and its performance in clinical and meal management dietitian activities." (Nutr Hosp. 2012;27:1170-1177) DOI:10.3305/nh.2012.27.4.5868

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF RESOURCE-AWARE BUSINESS PROCESSES USING STOCHASTIC AUTOMATA NETWORKS

In this work, we study the performance evaluation of resource-aware business process models. We define a new framework that allows the generation of analytical models for performance evaluation from business process models annotated with resource management information. This framework is composed of a new notation that allows the specification of resource management constraints and a method to convert a business process specification and its resource constraints into Stochastic Automata Networks (SANs). We show that the analysis of the generated SAN model provides several performance indices, such as average throughput of the system, average waiting time, average queues size, and utilization rate of resources. Using the BP2SAN tool - our implementation of the proposed framework - and a SAN solver (such as the PEPS tool) we show through a simple use-case how a business specialist with no skills in stochastic modeling can easily obtain performance indices that, in turn, can help to identify bottlenecks on the model, to perform workload characterization, to define the provisioning of resources, and to study other performance related aspects of the business process.

Evaluation of mannan-oligosaccharides offered in milk replacers or calf starters and their effect on performance and rumen development of dairy calves

The objective of this study was to evaluate the route of administration of mannan-oligosaccharides in the diet of dairy calves and their effects on performance and plasma parameters indicative of rumen development. Following birth, twenty-four male Holstein calves were used in a completely randomized design and assigned to the following treatments: Control; 4 g/d Bio-Mos (R) (Alltech Biotech.) added to starter concentrate; and 4 g/d Bio-Mos (R) mixed into milk replacer. Animals were housed in individual hutches with free access to water, and fed 4L/d of milk replacer until weaning at six weeks. Calves also received 23g/kg crude protein of starter concentrate ad libitum. Fecal scores were evaluated daily. Body weights, growth measurements and blood samples for glucose, urea-N and beta-hidroxibutyrate analyses were taken weekly until 8 weeks of age. There were no significant effects of treatment or treatment x age interactions for mean starter concentrate intake, weight gain or body growth. However, there was a significant age effect for all parameters. Fecal scores were not affected by treatments. Also, plasma concentration of glucose, urea-N or beta-hidroxibutyrate were not affected by treatment or the treatment x age interaction. However, urea-N and beta-hidroxibutyrate concentrations significantly increased with age, suggesting adequate rumen development. Under the conditions of this study, there were no calf performance benefits when mannan-oligosaccharides were incorporated into milk replacer or calf starter concentrate.

Organization Performance Evaluation Using System Thinking: A Study in Brazilian Chemical Organizations Models

System thinking allows companies to use subjective constructs indicators like recursiveness, cause-effect relationships and autonomy to performance evaluation. Thus, the question that motivates this paper is: Are Brazilian companies searching new performance measurement and evaluation models based on system thinking? The study investigates models looking for system thinking roots in their framework. It was both exploratory and descriptive based on a multiple four case studies strategy in chemical sector. The findings showed organizational models have some characteristics that can be related to system thinking as system control and communication. Complexity and autonomy are deficiently formalized by the companies. All data suggest, inside its context, that system thinking seems to be adequate to organizational performance evaluation but remains distant from the management proceedings.

Comparative performance evaluation of hepatitis C virus genotyping based on the 5' untranslated region versus partial sequencing of the NS5B region of brazilian patients with chronic hepatitis C

Background Genotyping of hepatitis C virus (HCV) has become an essential tool for prognosis and prediction of treatment duration. The aim of this study was to compare two HCV genotyping methods: reverse hybridization line probe assay (LiPA v.1) and partial sequencing of the NS5B region. Methods Plasma of 171 patients with chronic hepatitis C were screened using both a commercial method (LiPA HCV Versant, Siemens, Tarrytown, NY, USA) and different primers targeting the NS5B region for PCR amplification and sequencing analysis. Results Comparison of the HCV genotyping methods showed no difference in the classification at the genotype level. However, a total of 82/171 samples (47.9%) including misclassification, non-subtypable, discrepant and inconclusive results were not classified by LiPA at the subtype level but could be discriminated by NS5B sequencing. Of these samples, 34 samples of genotype 1a and 6 samples of genotype 1b were classified at the subtype level using sequencing of NS5B. Conclusions Sequence analysis of NS5B for genotyping HCV provides precise genotype and subtype identification and an accurate epidemiological representation of circulating viral strains.

Evaluation of the performance of a castor-oil based formulation in limiting pesticide residues in strawberry crops

A study was made to evaluate the effect of a castor oil-based detergent on strawberry crops treated with different classes of pesticides, namely deltamethrin, folpet, tebuconazole, abamectin and mancozeb, in a controlled environment. Experimental crops of greenhouse strawberries were cultivated in five different ways with control groups using pesticides and castor oil-based detergent. The results showed that the group 2, which was treated with castor oil-based detergent, presented the lowest amount of pesticide residues and the highest quality of fruit produced.