Choosing best components for an amputee: a methodology for the best decision-making

The harmony between the stump and the prosthesis is critical to allow it to fulfill its function enabling an efficient gait. A well fitted socket, with an efficient and comfortable suspension, allows the amputee to continue their daily living activities, maintaining the stump functional, making this correlation between socket and suspension very important in the functionality of the prosthesis, mobility and overall satisfaction with the device. Of our knowledge, the quantitative correlation between all of these factors as not yet been assessed. Aim of study: Verify and confirm the process of decision-making for four different trans-tibial prostheses with suspension systems: Hypobaric(A), PIN(B), Classic Suction(C) and Vacuum Active –VASS(D) according data provided by gait efficiency (mlO2/kg/m) imagiology (pistonning) and amputee perception.

Choosing best components for an amputee: a methodology for the best decision-making

Introduction - The harmony between the stump and the prosthesis is critical to allow it to fulfill its function enabling an efficient gait. A well fitted socket, with an efficient and comfortable suspension, allows the amputee to continue their daily living activities, maintaining the stump functional, making this correlation between socket and suspension very important in the functionality of the prosthesis, mobility and overall satisfaction with the device. Of our knowledge, the quantitative correlation between all of these factors as not yet been assessed. The objective of this study is to verify and confirm the process of decision-making for four different trans-tibial prostheses with suspension systems: Hypobaric(A), PIN(B), Classic Suction(C) and Vacuum Active –VASS(D) according data provided by gait efficiency (mlO2/kg/m) imagiology (pistonning) and amputee perception.

Risk Aversion in a Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Approach to Support Decision-Making for a Hydro Power Producer

In this paper, a mixed-integer nonlinear approach is proposed to support decision-making for a hydro power producer, considering a head-dependent hydro chain. The aim is to maximize the profit of the hydro power producer from selling energy into the electric market. As a new contribution to earlier studies, a risk aversion criterion is taken into account, as well as head-dependency. The volatility of the expected profit is limited through the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). The proposed approach has been applied successfully to solve a case study based on one of the main Portuguese cascaded hydro systems.

Increasing availability through maintainability growth using partial Multi Criteria Decision Making (pMCDM)

In the last decades considerations about equipments' availability became an important issue, as well as its dependence on components characteristics such as reliability and maintainability. This is particularly of outstanding importance if one is dealing with high risk industrial equipments, where these factors play an important and fundamental role in risk management when safety or huge economic values are in discussion. As availability is a function of reliability, maintainability, and maintenance support activities, the main goal is to improve one or more of these factors. This paper intends to show how maintainability can influence availability and present a methodology to select the most important attributes for maintainability using a partial Multi Criteria Decision Making (pMCDM). Improvements in maintainability can be analyzed assuming it as a probability related with a restore probability density function [g(t)].

A hybrid approach to multi-agent decision-making

In the aftermath of a large-scale disaster, agents' decisions derive from self-interested (e.g. survival), common-good (e.g. victims' rescue) and teamwork (e.g. fire extinction) motivations. However, current decision-theoretic models are either purely individual or purely collective and find it difficult to deal with motivational attitudes; on the other hand, mental-state based models find it difficult to deal with uncertainty. We propose a hybrid, CvI-JI, approach that combines: i) collective 'versus' individual (CvI) decisions, founded on the Markov decision process (MDP) quantitative evaluation of joint-actions, and ii)joint-intentions (JI) formulation of teamwork, founded on the belief-desire-intention (BDI) architecture of general mental-state based reasoning. The CvI-JI evaluation explores the performance's improvement

Commercial agents portfolio optimization in electricity markets

As it is well known, competitive electricity markets require new computing tools for power companies that operate in retail markets in order to enhance the management of its energy resources. During the last years there has been an increase of the renewable penetration into the micro-generation which begins to co-exist with the other existing power generation, giving rise to a new type of consumers. This paper develops a methodology to be applied to the management of the all the aggregators. The aggregator establishes bilateral contracts with its clients where the energy purchased and selling conditions are negotiated not only in terms of prices but also for other conditions that allow more flexibility in the way generation and consumption is addressed. The aggregator agent needs a tool to support the decision making in order to compose and select its customers' portfolio in an optimal way, for a given level of profitability and risk.

Commercial agentes portfolio optimization in electricity markets

As it is well known, competitive electricity markets require new computing tools for power companies that operate in retail markets in order to enhance the management of its energy resources. During the last years there has been an increase of the renewable penetration into the micro-generation which begins to co-exist with the other existing power generation, giving rise to a new type of consumers. This paper develops a methodology to be applied to the management of the all the aggregators. The aggregator establishes bilateral contracts with its clients where the energy purchased and selling conditions are negotiated not only in terms of prices but also for other conditions that allow more flexibility in the way generation and consumption is addressed. The aggregator agent needs a tool to support the decision making in order to compose and select its customers' portfolio in an optimal way, for a given level of profitability and risk.