Proposta de modelo multicritérios para análise de investimentos em refinarias de petróleo no Brasil.

O processo de tomada de decisão que envolve a priorização e a seleção de projetos de investimentos na indústria do petróleo está longe de ser uma tarefa trivial. Ao mesmo tempo em que a empresa deve buscar relações favoráveis entre risco e retorno econômico-financeiro também deve se alinhar cada vez mais aos princípios do desenvolvimento sustentável em seus negócios. Em se tratando do caso da indústria petrolífera brasileira, formada essencialmente por um monopólio estatal, esta tarefa se torna ainda mais difícil, já que uma série de interesses públicos relacionados ao investimento também devem ser considerados. Sendo assim, o objetivo principal desta pesquisa foi o desenvolvimento e a aplicação de um modelo original de análise usando múltiplos critérios que auxiliasse na priorização e na seleção de projetos de investimentos nas refinarias de petróleo brasileiras. Utilizou-se uma metodologia de pesquisa quantitativa com o uso de diversos artefatos de matemática aplicada capazes de lidar adequadamente com as avaliações muitas vezes incompletas e subjetivas que caracterizam o problema da análise de investimentos em refinarias de petróleo. Ao final do trabalho, conseguiu-se obter um modelo suficientemente simples, ao ponto de ser facilmente implementado em uma planilha eletrônica, robusto, ao ser capaz de lidar de maneira bastante adequada com as principais peculiaridades que envolvem o setor do refino de petróleo no Brasil e flexível, de maneira que os critérios de análise e as alternativas de decisão pudessem ser facilmente adicionados, removidos ou alterados de acordo com as necessidades específicas exigidas para cada caso.

Mi Schwannoma Vestibular. El día que mi vida cambió

El relato describe la incidencia en la vida del autor de un diagnóstico: Schwannoma Vestibular (también conocido como Neurinoma del Acústico). A partir de ese momento, todo lo cotidiano, la tranquilidad relativa de la rutina diaria y la priorización de necesidades experimenta un cambio sustancial en su vida. El pasado y el futuro se funden en un apretado ramillete de especulaciones sobre lo que ha sido, es y será su vida tras estas nuevas vivencias que emergen de un replanteamiento esencial del sentido de la existencia. La decisión de narrar sus vivencias en este contexto contribuye, en gran medida, a la autoreflexión y, a la vez, construye un material narrativo que puede ayudarnos a reflexionar sobre situaciones parecidas a los demás.

Percepção dos usuários sobre o programa de saúde da família : um contributo para a reflexão

A Estratégia Saúde da Família apresenta-se como uma possibilidade de reestruturação da atenção primária, a partir de um conjunto de ações conjugadas em sintonia com os princípios de intersetorialidade, descentralização, equidade, coresponsabilidade e priorização de grupos populacionais com maior risco de adoecerem ou morrerem. Assim, este estudo objetivou caracterizar a percepção dos usuários da Unidade Básica de Saúde da Família (UBSF) sobre o Programa Saúde da Família (PSF). Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo desenvolvido na USF Barra de Sirinhaém, do Estado de Pernanbuco. Para tanto, contou-se com a participação de 54 usuárias do sexo feminino. Estas responderam a um formulário sócio-demográfico e um roteiro de entrevista semi-diretiva. Os discursos foram submetidos a análise de conteúdo à luz da literatura pertinente. Os principais resultados mostraram que a percepção das usuárias acerca do Programa de Saúde Familiar é de que este ainda funciona com abordagem curativa, mas que possuem maior acessibilidade e construíram um vínculo mais efetivo com os profissionais de saúde. Diante do exposto infere-se que a estratégia de saúde da família ainda não se concretiza pela dificuldade das pessoas entenderem a filosofia do programa, ainda polarizarem uma visão hospitalocêntrica da saúde e revelaram um certo alheamento da compreensão do significado do PSF. Palavras-chave: Estratégia Saúde da Família; Percepção; Assistência à Saúde.

Socioemotional Wealth, Ambidexterity, and Family Firm Performance: An Empirical Study

While family business literature agrees that family firms are driven by both non-economic and financial motives, it is unclear how the prioritization of socioemotional wealth (SEW) over financial considerations affects family firms' financial performance. Based on a sample of 343 family firm owners from German-speaking Europe, this study reveals a significant and positive relationship between the firm owners' SEW considerations and their family businesses' financial performance. This relationship, in turn, is found to be mediated by organizational ambidexterity. A fine-grained analysis of the different SEW dimensions indicates that this pattern may be driven by two elements of socioemotional wealth only (family members' identification with the firm and emotional attachment). Our findings demonstrate that business families do not necessarily face a trade-off when prioritizing the preservation of their SEW over stabilizing or improving the financial performance of their business. The study enriches several streams of literature and opens up numerous avenues for future research.

Contributions to Physics-Based Aeroservoelastic Uncertainty Analysis

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Crystallography of zirconium hydrides in recrystallized Zircaloy-2 fuel cladding lay electron backscatter diffraction

Precipitation morphology and habit planes of the delta-phase Zr hydrides, which were precipitated within the a-phase matrix grains and along the grain boundaries of recrystallized Zircaloy-2 cladding tube, have been examined by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Radially-oriented hydrides, induced by residual tensile stress, precipitated in the outside region of the cladding, and circumferentially-oriented hydrides in the stress-free middle region of the cladding. The most common crystallographic relationship for both types of the hydrides precipitated at the inter- and intra-granular sites was identical at (0001)(alpha) // {111}(delta), with {1017}(alpha) // {111}(delta) being the occasional exception only for the inter-granular radial hydrides. When tensile stress was loaded, the intra-granular hydrides tended to preferentially precipitate in the grains with circumferential basal pole textures. The inter-granular hydrides tended to preferentially precipitate on the grain faces opposite to tensile axis. The change of prioritization in the precipitation sites for the hydrides due to tensile stress could be explained in terms of the relaxation effect of constrained elastic energy on the terminal solid solubility of hydrogen at hydride precipitation.

Measuring the global burden of disease and epidemiological transitions: 2002-2030

Any planning process for health development ought to be based on a thorough understanding of the health needs of the population. This should be sufficiently comprehensive to include the causes of premature death and of disability, as well as the major risk factors that underlie disease and injury. To be truly useful to inform health-policy debates, such an assessment is needed across a large number of diseases, injuries and risk factors, in order to guide prioritization. The results of the original Global Burden of Disease Study and, particularly, those of its 2000-2002 update provide a conceptual and methodological framework to quantify and compare the health of populations using a summary measure of both mortality and disability: the disability-adjusted life-year (DALY). Globally, it appears that about 5 6 million deaths occur each year, 10. 5 million (almost all in poor countries) in children. Of the child deaths, about one-fifth result from perinatal causes such as birth asphyxia and birth trauma, and only slightly less from lower respiratory infections. Annually, diarrhoeal diseases kill over 1.5 million children, and malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS each claim between 500,000 and 800,000 children. HIV/AIDS is the fourth leading cause of death world-wide (2.9 million deaths) and the leading cause in Africa. The top three causes of death globally are ischaemic heart disease (7.2 million deaths), stroke (5.5 million) and lower respiratory diseases (3.9 million). Chronic obstructive lung diseases (COPD) cause almost as many deaths as HIV/AIDS (2.7 million). The leading causes of DALY, on the other hand, include causes that are common at young ages [perinatal conditions (7. 1 % of global DALY), lower respiratory infections (6.7%), and diarrhoeal diseases (4.7%)] as well as depression (4.1%). Ischaemic heart disease and stroke rank sixth and seventh, retrospectively, as causes of global disease burden, followed by road traffic accidents, malaria and tuberculosis. Projections to 2030 indicate that, although these major vascular diseases will remain leading causes of global disease burden, with HIV/AIDS the leading cause, diarrhoeal diseases and lower respiratory infections will be outranked by COPD, in part reflecting the projected increases in death and disability from tobacco use.

Biodiversity conservation planning tools: Present status and challenges for the future

Species extinctions and the deterioration of other biodiversity features worldwide have led to the adoption of systematic conservation planning in many regions of the world. As a consequence, various software tools for conservation planning have been developed over the past twenty years. These, tools implement algorithms designed to identify conservation area networks for the representation and persistence of biodiversity features. Budgetary, ethical, and other sociopolitical constraints dictate that the prioritized sites represent biodiversity with minimum impact on human interests. Planning tools are typically also used to satisfy these criteria. This chapter reviews both the concepts and technical choices that underlie the development of these tools. Conservation planning problems can be formulated as optimization problems, and we evaluate the suitability of different algorithms for their solution. Finally, we also review some key issues associated with the use of these tools, such as computational efficiency, the effectiveness of taxa and abiotic parameters at choosing surrogates for biodiversity, the process of setting explicit targets of representation for biodiversity surrogates, and

Uses of frontier efficiency methodologies and multi-criteria decision making for performance measurement in the energy sector

Guest editorial Ali Emrouznejad is a Senior Lecturer at the Aston Business School in Birmingham, UK. His areas of research interest include performance measurement and management, efficiency and productivity analysis as well as data mining. He has published widely in various international journals. He is an Associate Editor of IMA Journal of Management Mathematics and Guest Editor to several special issues of journals including Journal of Operational Research Society, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of Medical Systems, and International Journal of Energy Management Sector. He is in the editorial board of several international journals and co-founder of Performance Improvement Management Software. William Ho is a Senior Lecturer at the Aston University Business School. Before joining Aston in 2005, he had worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests include supply chain management, production and operations management, and operations research. He has published extensively in various international journals like Computers & Operations Research, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, European Journal of Operational Research, Expert Systems with Applications, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, and so on. His first authored book was published in 2006. He is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology and an Associate Editor of the OR Insight Journal. Currently, he is a Scholar of the Advanced Institute of Management Research. Uses of frontier efficiency methodologies and multi-criteria decision making for performance measurement in the energy sector This special issue aims to focus on holistic, applied research on performance measurement in energy sector management and for publication of relevant applied research to bridge the gap between industry and academia. After a rigorous refereeing process, seven papers were included in this special issue. The volume opens with five data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based papers. Wu et al. apply the DEA-based Malmquist index to evaluate the changes in relative efficiency and the total factor productivity of coal-fired electricity generation of 30 Chinese administrative regions from 1999 to 2007. Factors considered in the model include fuel consumption, labor, capital, sulphur dioxide emissions, and electricity generated. The authors reveal that the east provinces were relatively and technically more efficient, whereas the west provinces had the highest growth rate in the period studied. Ioannis E. Tsolas applies the DEA approach to assess the performance of Greek fossil fuel-fired power stations taking undesirable outputs into consideration, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide emissions. In addition, the bootstrapping approach is deployed to address the uncertainty surrounding DEA point estimates, and provide bias-corrected estimations and confidence intervals for the point estimates. The author revealed from the sample that the non-lignite-fired stations are on an average more efficient than the lignite-fired stations. Maethee Mekaroonreung and Andrew L. Johnson compare the relative performance of three DEA-based measures, which estimate production frontiers and evaluate the relative efficiency of 113 US petroleum refineries while considering undesirable outputs. Three inputs (capital, energy consumption, and crude oil consumption), two desirable outputs (gasoline and distillate generation), and an undesirable output (toxic release) are considered in the DEA models. The authors discover that refineries in the Rocky Mountain region performed the best, and about 60 percent of oil refineries in the sample could improve their efficiencies further. H. Omrani, A. Azadeh, S. F. Ghaderi, and S. Abdollahzadeh presented an integrated approach, combining DEA, corrected ordinary least squares (COLS), and principal component analysis (PCA) methods, to calculate the relative efficiency scores of 26 Iranian electricity distribution units from 2003 to 2006. Specifically, both DEA and COLS are used to check three internal consistency conditions, whereas PCA is used to verify and validate the final ranking results of either DEA (consistency) or DEA-COLS (non-consistency). Three inputs (network length, transformer capacity, and number of employees) and two outputs (number of customers and total electricity sales) are considered in the model. Virendra Ajodhia applied three DEA-based models to evaluate the relative performance of 20 electricity distribution firms from the UK and the Netherlands. The first model is a traditional DEA model for analyzing cost-only efficiency. The second model includes (inverse) quality by modelling total customer minutes lost as an input data. The third model is based on the idea of using total social costs, including the firm’s private costs and the interruption costs incurred by consumers, as an input. Both energy-delivered and number of consumers are treated as the outputs in the models. After five DEA papers, Stelios Grafakos, Alexandros Flamos, Vlasis Oikonomou, and D. Zevgolis presented a multiple criteria analysis weighting approach to evaluate the energy and climate policy. The proposed approach is akin to the analytic hierarchy process, which consists of pairwise comparisons, consistency verification, and criteria prioritization. In the approach, stakeholders and experts in the energy policy field are incorporated in the evaluation process by providing an interactive mean with verbal, numerical, and visual representation of their preferences. A total of 14 evaluation criteria were considered and classified into four objectives, such as climate change mitigation, energy effectiveness, socioeconomic, and competitiveness and technology. Finally, Borge Hess applied the stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyze the impact of various business strategies, including acquisition, holding structures, and joint ventures, on a firm’s efficiency within a sample of 47 natural gas transmission pipelines in the USA from 1996 to 2005. The author finds that there were no significant changes in the firm’s efficiency by an acquisition, and there is a weak evidence for efficiency improvements caused by the new shareholder. Besides, the author discovers that parent companies appear not to influence a subsidiary’s efficiency positively. In addition, the analysis shows a negative impact of a joint venture on technical efficiency of the pipeline company. To conclude, we are grateful to all the authors for their contribution, and all the reviewers for their constructive comments, which made this special issue possible. We hope that this issue would contribute significantly to performance improvement of the energy sector.

Multiple criteria optimization of contemporary logistics distribution network problems

In the contemporary customer-driven supply chain, maximization of customer service plays an equally important role as minimization of costs for a company to retain and increase its competitiveness. This article develops a multiple-criteria optimization approach, combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and an integer linear programming (ILP) model, to aid the design of an optimal logistics distribution network. The proposed approach outperforms traditional cost-based optimization techniques because it considers both quantitative and qualitative factors and also aims at maximizing the benefits of deliverer and customers. In the approach, the AHP is used to determine the relative importance weightings or priorities of alternative warehouses with respect to some critical customer-oriented criteria. The results of AHP prioritization are utilized as the input of the ILP model, the objective of which is to select the best warehouses at the lowest possible cost. In this article, two commercial packages are used: including Expert Choice and LINDO.

Quality-driven resource utilization methods for video streaming in wireless communication networks

This research is focused on the optimisation of resource utilisation in wireless mobile networks with the consideration of the users’ experienced quality of video streaming services. The study specifically considers the new generation of mobile communication networks, i.e. 4G-LTE, as the main research context. The background study provides an overview of the main properties of the relevant technologies investigated. These include video streaming protocols and networks, video service quality assessment methods, the infrastructure and related functionalities of LTE, and resource allocation algorithms in mobile communication systems. A mathematical model based on an objective and no-reference quality assessment metric for video streaming, namely Pause Intensity, is developed in this work for the evaluation of the continuity of streaming services. The analytical model is verified by extensive simulation and subjective testing on the joint impairment effects of the pause duration and pause frequency. Various types of the video contents and different levels of the impairments have been used in the process of validation tests. It has been shown that Pause Intensity is closely correlated with the subjective quality measurement in terms of the Mean Opinion Score and this correlation property is content independent. Based on the Pause Intensity metric, an optimised resource allocation approach is proposed for the given user requirements, communication system specifications and network performances. This approach concerns both system efficiency and fairness when establishing appropriate resource allocation algorithms, together with the consideration of the correlation between the required and allocated data rates per user. Pause Intensity plays a key role here, representing the required level of Quality of Experience (QoE) to ensure the best balance between system efficiency and fairness. The 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) system is used as the main application environment where the proposed research framework is examined and the results are compared with existing scheduling methods on the achievable fairness, efficiency and correlation. Adaptive video streaming technologies are also investigated and combined with our initiatives on determining the distribution of QoE performance across the network. The resulting scheduling process is controlled through the prioritization of users by considering their perceived quality for the services received. Meanwhile, a trade-off between fairness and efficiency is maintained through an online adjustment of the scheduler’s parameters. Furthermore, Pause Intensity is applied to act as a regulator to realise the rate adaptation function during the end user’s playback of the adaptive streaming service. The adaptive rates under various channel conditions and the shape of the QoE distribution amongst the users for different scheduling policies have been demonstrated in the context of LTE. Finally, the work for interworking between mobile communication system at the macro-cell level and the different deployments of WiFi technologies throughout the macro-cell is presented. A QoEdriven approach is proposed to analyse the offloading mechanism of the user’s data (e.g. video traffic) while the new rate distribution algorithm reshapes the network capacity across the macrocell. The scheduling policy derived is used to regulate the performance of the resource allocation across the fair-efficient spectrum. The associated offloading mechanism can properly control the number of the users within the coverages of the macro-cell base station and each of the WiFi access points involved. The performance of the non-seamless and user-controlled mobile traffic offloading (through the mobile WiFi devices) has been evaluated and compared with that of the standard operator-controlled WiFi hotspots.

Making SENS:exploring the antecedents and impact of store environmental stewardship climate

Retailers increasingly recognize that environmental responsibility is a strategic imperative. However, little research has investigated or identified the factors that facilitate the successful implementation of environmentally responsible strategies across a network of customer-facing sales units (stores). We propose that a store manager’s ability to lead by example facilitates this process by fostering a supportive climate for store environmental stewardship (SENS-climate). By examining the influence of store managers’ actions on sales associates’ perceptions of the SENS-climate, as well as the subsequent impact on their performance—measured by margins, as well as sales of green and regular products—this study demonstrates that store managers can foster a SENS-climate by articulating their prioritization of environmental responsibility in their operational decisions. These positive effects are sustained by relational factors, such as the moderating effect of the store manager–sales associate dyadic tenure. In contrast, when store managers display high variability in their environmental orientation, it hinders the development of SENS-climate perceptions among sales associates. If sales associates perceive an enabling SENS-climate, they achieve higher margins and more green but fewer regular sales.

Performance of FRP-concrete bridges under blast loading

Catastrophic failure from intentional terrorist attacks on surface transportation infrastructure could he detrimental to the society. In order to minimize the vulnerabilities and to ensure a safe transportation system, the issue of security for transportation structures, primarily bridges, which are subjected to man-made hazards is investigated in this study. A procedure for identifying and prioritizing "critical bridges" using a screening and prioritization processes is established. For each of the "critical" bridges, a systematic risk-based assessment approach is proposed that takes into account the combination of threat occurrence likelihood, its consequences, and the socioeconomic importance of the bridge. A series of effective security countermeasures are compiled in the four categories of deterrence, detection, defense and mitigation to help reduce the vulnerability of critical bridges. The concepts of simplified equivalent I-shape cross section and virtual materials are proposed for integration into a nonlinear finite element model, which helps assess the performance of reinforced concrete structures with and without composite retrofit or hardening measures under blast loading. A series of parametric studies are conducted for single column and two-column pier frame systems as well as for an entire bridge. The parameters considered include column height, column type, concrete strength, longitudinal steel reinforcement ratio, thickness, fiber angle and tensile strength of the fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) tube, shape of the cross section, damping ratio and different bomb sizes. The study shows the benefits of hardening with composites against blast loading. The effect of steel reinforcement on blast resistance of the structure is more significant than the effect of concrete compressive strength. Moreover, multiple blasts do not necessarily lead to a more severe destruction than a single detonation at a strategically vulnerable location on the bridges.

Actionable pattern analysis in computing and business intelligence systems

With advances in science and technology, computing and business intelligence (BI) systems are steadily becoming more complex with an increasing variety of heterogeneous software and hardware components. They are thus becoming progressively more difficult to monitor, manage and maintain. Traditional approaches to system management have largely relied on domain experts through a knowledge acquisition process that translates domain knowledge into operating rules and policies. It is widely acknowledged as a cumbersome, labor intensive, and error prone process, besides being difficult to keep up with the rapidly changing environments. In addition, many traditional business systems deliver primarily pre-defined historic metrics for a long-term strategic or mid-term tactical analysis, and lack the necessary flexibility to support evolving metrics or data collection for real-time operational analysis. There is thus a pressing need for automatic and efficient approaches to monitor and manage complex computing and BI systems. To realize the goal of autonomic management and enable self-management capabilities, we propose to mine system historical log data generated by computing and BI systems, and automatically extract actionable patterns from this data. This dissertation focuses on the development of different data mining techniques to extract actionable patterns from various types of log data in computing and BI systems. Four key problems—Log data categorization and event summarization, Leading indicator identification , Pattern prioritization by exploring the link structures , and Tensor model for three-way log data are studied. Case studies and comprehensive experiments on real application scenarios and datasets are conducted to show the effectiveness of our proposed approaches.