A review of telehealth

Telehealth is an exciting new technique for improving access to specialist care, especially in underserviced areas. As with any new health care intervention, proper evaluations must be carried out to ensure that limited health care resources are employed appropriately. Evidence suggests that the most successful telehealth initiatives are those that have focussed on organisational and deployment issues, rather than on the technology itself. In the right circumstances, telehealth offers a cost-effective alternative to the traditional methods of health care delivery Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.

A novel target-field method for finite-length magnetic resonance shim coils: I. Zonal shims

This paper presents a new approach for the design of genuinely finite-length shim and gradient coils, intended for use in magnetic resonance imaging equipment. A cylindrical target region is located asymmetrically, at an arbitrary position within a coil of finite length. A desired target field is specified on the surface of that region, and a method is given that enables winding patterns on the surface of the coil to be designed, to produce the desired field at the inner target region. The method uses a minimization technique combined with regularization, to find the current density on the surface of the coil. The method is illustrated for linear, quadratic and cubic magnetic target fields located asymmetrically within a finite-length coil.

On positive solutions of nonlinear elliptic equations involving concave and critical nonlinearities

We study the existence of nonnegative solutions of elliptic equations involving concave and critical Sobolev nonlinearities. Applying various variational principles we obtain the existence of at least two nonnegative solutions.

Modeling diffraction in free-space optical interconnects by the mode expansion method

Free-space optical interconnects (FSOIs), made up of dense arrays of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, photodetectors and microlenses can be used for implementing high-speed and high-density communication links, and hence replace the inferior electrical interconnects. A major concern in the design of FSOIs is minimization of the optical channel cross talk arising from laser beam diffraction. In this article we introduce modifications to the mode expansion method of Tanaka et al. [IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech. MTT-20, 749 (1972)] to make it an efficient tool for modelling and design of FSOIs in the presence of diffraction. We demonstrate that our modified mode expansion method has accuracy similar to the exact solution of the Huygens-Kirchhoff diffraction integral in cases of both weak and strong beam clipping, and that it is much more accurate than the existing approximations. The strength of the method is twofold: first, it is applicable in the region of pronounced diffraction (strong beam clipping) where all other approximations fail and, second, unlike the exact-solution method, it can be efficiently used for modelling diffraction on multiple apertures. These features make the mode expansion method useful for design and optimization of free-space architectures containing multiple optical elements inclusive of optical interconnects and optical clock distribution systems. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.

Financial strategies for minimizing corporate income taxes under Brazil's new global tax system

In 1996, Brazil adopted a worldwide income tax system for corporations. This system represents a fundamental change in how the Brazílian government treats multinational transactions and the tax minimizing strategies relevant to businesses. In this article, we describe the conceptual basis for worldwide tax systems and the problem of double taxation that they create. Responses to double taxation by both the governments and the priva te sector are considered. Namely, the imperfect mechanisms developed by Brazil and other countries for mitigating double taxation are analyzed. We ultimately focus on the strategies that companies utilize in order not only to avoid double texetion, but also to take advantage of tax havens.

Scaling of the elastic contribution to the surface free energy of a nematic liquid crystal on a sawtoothed substrate

We characterize the elastic contribution to the surface free energy of a nematic liquid crystal in the presence of a sawtooth substrate. Our findings are based on numerical minimization of the Landau-de Gennes model and analytical calculations on the Frank-Oseen theory. The nucleation of disclination lines (characterized by non-half-integer winding numbers) in the wedges and apexes of the substrate induces a leading order proportional to q ln q to the elastic contribution to the surface free-energy density, with q being the wave number associated with the substrate periodicity.

Learning dependent sources using mixtures of Dirichlet: applications on hyperspectral unmixing

This paper is an elaboration of the DECA algorithm [1] to blindly unmix hyperspectral data. The underlying mixing model is linear, meaning that each pixel is a linear mixture of the endmembers signatures weighted by the correspondent abundance fractions. The proposed method, as DECA, is tailored to highly mixed mixtures in which the geometric based approaches fail to identify the simplex of minimum volume enclosing the observed spectral vectors. We resort then to a statitistical framework, where the abundance fractions are modeled as mixtures of Dirichlet densities, thus enforcing the constraints on abundance fractions imposed by the acquisition process, namely non-negativity and constant sum. With respect to DECA, we introduce two improvements: 1) the number of Dirichlet modes are inferred based on the minimum description length (MDL) principle; 2) The generalized expectation maximization (GEM) algorithm we adopt to infer the model parameters is improved by using alternating minimization and augmented Lagrangian methods to compute the mixing matrix. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated with simulated and read data.

A gestão do risco associado à negociação de energia eléctrica através de contratos bilaterais e mercado spot

Num mercado de electricidade competitivo onde existe um ambiente de incerteza, as empresas de geração adoptam estratégias que visam a maximização do lucro, e a minimização do risco. Neste contexto, é de extrema importância para desenvolver uma estratégia adequada de gestão de risco ter em conta as diferentes opções de negociação de energia num mercado liberalizado, de forma a suportar a tomada de decisões na gestão de risco. O presente trabalho apresenta um modelo que avalia a melhor estratégia de um produtor de energia eléctrica que comercializa num mercado competitivo, onde existem dois mercados possíveis para a transacção de energia: o mercado organizado (bolsa) e o mercado de contratos bilaterais. O produtor tenta maximizar seus lucros e minimizar os riscos correspondentes, seleccionando o melhor equilíbrio entre os dois mercados possíveis (bolsa e bilateral). O mercado de contratos bilaterais visa gerir adequadamente os riscos inerentes à operação de mercados no curto prazo (mercado organizado) e dar o vendedor / comprador uma capacidade real de escolher o fornecedor com que quer negociar. O modelo apresentado neste trabalho faz uma caracterização explícita do risco no que diz respeito ao agente de mercado na questão da sua atitude face ao risco, medido pelo Value at Risk (VaR), descrito neste trabalho por Lucro-em-Risco (PAR). O preço e os factores de risco de volume são caracterizados por um valor médio e um desvio padrão, e são modelizados por distribuições normais. Os resultados numéricos são obtidos utilizando a simulação de Monte Carlo implementado em Matlab, e que é aplicado a um produtor que mantém uma carteira diversificada de tecnologias de geração, para um horizonte temporal de um ano. Esta dissertação está organizada da seguinte forma: o capítulo 1, 2 e 3 descrevem o estado-da-arte relacionado com a gestão de risco na comercialização de energia eléctrica. O capítulo 4 descreve o modelo desenvolvido e implementado, onde é também apresentado um estudo de caso com uma aplicação do modelo para avaliar o risco de negociação de um produtor. No capítulo 5 são apresentadas as principais conclusões.

Nematic wetting and filling of crenellated surfaces

We investigate nematic wetting and filling transitions of crenellated surfaces (rectangular gratings) by numerical minimization of the Landau-de Gennes free energy as a function of the anchoring strength, for a wide range of the surface geometrical parameters: depth, width, and separation of the crenels. We have found a rich phase behavior that depends in detail on the combination of the surface parameters. By comparison to simple fluids, which undergo a continuous filling or unbending transition, where the surface changes from a dry to a filled state, followed by a wetting or unbinding transition, where the thickness of the adsorbed fluid becomes macroscopic and the interface unbinds from the surface, nematics at crenellated surfaces reveal an intriguingly rich behavior: in shallow crenels only wetting is observed, while in deep crenels, only filling transitions occur; for intermediate surface geometrical parameters, a new class of filled states is found, characterized by bent isotropic-nematic interfaces, which persist for surfaces structured on large scales, compared to the nematic correlation length. The global phase diagram displays two wet and four filled states, all separated by first-order transitions. For crenels in the intermediate regime re-entrant filling transitions driven by the anchoring strength are observed.

Estudo de caso. A implementação do projeto de internalização do RX do Centro de Diagnóstico Pneumológico do Porto

Portugal atravessa uma crise económico-financeira. A austeridade económica é prioritária, e a área de saúde não é exceção. Nesta conjuntura justifica-se de todo a realização de análises económicas na saúde. Este estudo é uma análise custo - mínimo ao Projeto de Internalização do RX do Centro Diagnóstico Pneumológico (CDP) do Porto com o objetivo de rentabilizar o equipamento radiológico instalado no CDP do Porto, pretende-se usar a capacidade máxima instalada e permitida pelo equipamento para produção de radiografias a utentes provenientes dos Agrupamentos de Centros de Saúde (ACES) do Porto. O Projeto de Internalização do RX do CDP do Porto é um projeto da Administração Regional de Saúde (ARS) do Norte, que pretende encaminhar os utentes dos ACES do Porto para realização de exames radiográficos no RX do CDP do Porto. Para proceder à análise económica foram identificados os custos e os benefícios relevantes do RX do CDP do Porto e elaboradas 3 estimativas: 1. Realização dos exames radiográficos do CDP do Porto a utentes do CDP do Porto e realização de exames radiográficos a utentes dos ACES do Porto nos gabinetes de radiologia convencionados pela ARSNorte; 2. Projeto de Internalização do RX do CDP do Porto com realização dos exames radiográficos até esgotar a capacidade máxima instalada do equipamento radiológico com recurso a utentes dos ACES do Porto; 3. Realização dos exames radiográficos nos ACES do Porto e dos exames do CDP do Porto nos gabinetes de radiologia convencionados. Os resultados da análise levaram à conclusão que a implementação do Projeto de Internalização do RX do Porto é rentável, ou seja, o projeto permitirá ganhos financeiros para a ARSNorte se for implementado na sua plenitude.

Convex Total Variation Denoising of Poisson Fluorescence Confocal Images With Anisotropic Filtering

Fluorescence confocal microscopy (FCM) is now one of the most important tools in biomedicine research. In fact, it makes it possible to accurately study the dynamic processes occurring inside the cell and its nucleus by following the motion of fluorescent molecules over time. Due to the small amount of acquired radiation and the huge optical and electronics amplification, the FCM images are usually corrupted by a severe type of Poisson noise. This noise may be even more damaging when very low intensity incident radiation is used to avoid phototoxicity. In this paper, a Bayesian algorithm is proposed to remove the Poisson intensity dependent noise corrupting the FCM image sequences. The observations are organized in a 3-D tensor where each plane is one of the images acquired along the time of a cell nucleus using the fluorescence loss in photobleaching (FLIP) technique. The method removes simultaneously the noise by considering different spatial and temporal correlations. This is accomplished by using an anisotropic 3-D filter that may be separately tuned in space and in time dimensions. Tests using synthetic and real data are described and presented to illustrate the application of the algorithm. A comparison with several state-of-the-art algorithms is also presented.

Using demand response to deal with unexpected low wind power generation in the context of smart grid

Demand response is assumed an essential resource to fully achieve the smart grids operating benefits, namely in the context of competitive markets. Some advantages of Demand Response (DR) programs and of smart grids can only be achieved through the implementation of Real Time Pricing (RTP). The integration of the expected increasing amounts of distributed energy resources, as well as new players, requires new approaches for the changing operation of power systems. The methodology proposed aims the minimization of the operation costs in a smart grid operated by a virtual power player. It is especially useful when actual and day ahead wind forecast differ significantly. When facing lower wind power generation than expected, RTP is used in order to minimize the impacts of such wind availability change. The proposed model application is here illustrated using the scenario of a special wind availability reduction day in the Portuguese power system (8th February 2012).

Efeito da imobilização na radioterapia do cancro do pulmão

Mestrado em Radiações Aplicadas às Tecnologias da Saúde. Área de especialização: Terapia com Radiações.

Demand response in future power systems management – a conceptual framework and simulation tool

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica – Sistemas Eléctricos de Energia