Solving the median shortest path problem in the planning and design of urban transportation networks using a vector labeling algorithm

This paper proposes an alternative algorithm to solve the median shortest path problem (MSPP) in the planning and design of urban transportation networks. The proposed vector labeling algorithm is based on the labeling of each node in terms of a multiple and conflicting vector of objectives which deletes cyclic, infeasible and extreme-dominated paths in the criteria space imposing cyclic break (CB), path cost constraint (PCC) and access cost parameter (ACP) respectively. The output of the algorithm is a set of Pareto optimal paths (POP) with an objective vector from predetermined origin to destination nodes. Thus, this paper formulates an algorithm to identify a non-inferior solution set of POP based on a non-dominated set of objective vectors that leaves the ultimate decision to decision-makers. A numerical experiment is conducted using an artificial transportation network in order to validate and compare results. Sensitivity analysis has shown that the proposed algorithm is more efficient and advantageous over existing solutions in terms of computing execution time and memory space used.

In-hospital falls and fall-related injuries: a protocol for a cost of fall study

Background:
In-hospital falls are common and pose significant economic burden on the healthcare system. To date, few studies have quantified the additional cost of hospitalisation associated with an in-hospital fall or fall-related injury. The aim of this study is to determine  the additional length of stay and hospitalisation costs associated with in-hospital falls and fall-related injuries, from the acute hospital perspective.

Methods and design: 
A multisite prospective study will be conducted as part of a larger falls-prevention clinical trial—the 6-PACK project. This study will involve 12 acute medical and surgical wards from six hospitals across Australia. Patient and admission characteristics, outcome and hospitalisation cost data will be prospectively collected on approximately 15 000 patients during the 15-month study period. A review of all inhospital fall events will be conducted using a multimodal method (medical record review and daily verbal report from the nurse unit manager, triangulated with falls recorded in the hospital incident reporting and administrative database), to ensure complete case ascertainment. Hospital clinical costing data will be used to calculate patient-level hospitalisation costs incurred by a patient during their inpatient stay. Additional hospital and hospital resource utilisation costs attributable to inhospital falls and fall-related injuries will be calculated using linear regression modelling, adjusting for a prioridefined potential confounding factors.

Discussion:
This protocol provides the detailed statement of the planned analysis. The results from this study will be used to support healthcare planning, policy making and allocation of funding relating to falls prevention within acute hospitals.

Sustainable planning and design of large-scale metropolitan development projects

Actors in the built environment are increasingly considering environmental issues alongside functional and economic aspects of development projects. However, to date in Australia and internationally, there have been few practical examples of integrated applications of sustainability principles in the built environment across all lifecycle phases. In response to this gap, this paper proposes a conceptual framework based on the principal that early intervention is the most cost-effective and efficient means of implementing effective strategies for sustainability. A strategic environmental assessment (SEA) approach is forwarded as an umbrella analytical framework, assembled from analytical methods which are strategically 'tiered' to inform stages of the project decision-making process. Practically applied and timed accordingly, the framework can allow assessments to be targeted towards appropriate decision making levels and enable better decision-making and more efficient resource allocation for major infrastructure development projects.

Contractor quantity surveyor using ERP system in cost reporting

Quantity surveying is the key profession in cost management for construction business. However, construction industry is notorious in using information technology that makes reporting inefficient. A construction company in Hong Kong has been using an enterprise resource planning system as the information communication technology in management and cost reporting backbone since 2003. This paper investigates if such system represents an efficient tool for quantity surveyors and any intervening actions are required to enhance its efficiency. In doing so, a team of surveyors interviewed and then the soft system methodology was used as the research approach to depict the situation. This leads to the improvement needs and list of actions. Participants have prioritized working closely with top/senior management to design a proper report format; avoiding unnecessary adjustments and undue influence to reporting, and ensuring accurate data as the top three critical actions crucial for reliable cost reporting.

An effective VAR planning to improve dynamic voltage profile of distribution networks with distributed wind generation

This paper proposes an effective VAR planning based on reactive power margin for the enhancement of dynamic voltage stability in distribution networks with distributed wind generation. The analysis is carried over a distribution test system representative of the Kumamoto area in Japan. The detailed mathematical modeling of the system is also presented. Firstly, this paper provides simulation results showing the effects of composite load on voltage dynamics in the distribution network through an accurate time-domain analysis. Then, a cost-effective combination of shunt capacitor bank and distribution static synchronous compensator (D-STATCOM) is selected to ensure fast voltage recovery after a sudden disturbance. The analysis shows that the proposed approach can reduce the size of compensating devices, which in turn, reduces the cost. It also reduces power loss of the system.

Long-term water supply planning in an Australian coastal city : Dams or desalination?

Water resource managers and planners are continually involved in defining and evaluating alternative policies to better meet changing water supply conditions and the expectations of society. To undertake such long-term water supply planning, this study developed a novel integrated system dynamics model to combine economic, social and scientific variables and considerations within the planning horizon. Extensive sensitivity analysis for these variables was considered in this long term water resource planning process. The analysis suggests that over a longer time horizon, desalination provides a more viable, cost effective and secure bulk water supply alternative when compared to building large rain-dependent dams.

Reuse-based test planning for core-based systems-on-chip

Electronic applications are currently developed under the reuse-based paradigm. This design methodology presents several advantages for the reduction of the design complexity, but brings new challenges for the test of the final circuit. The access to embedded cores, the integration of several test methods, and the optimization of the several cost factors are just a few of the several problems that need to be tackled during test planning. Within this context, this thesis proposes two test planning approaches that aim at reducing the test costs of a core-based system by means of hardware reuse and integration of the test planning into the design flow. The first approach considers systems whose cores are connected directly or through a functional bus. The test planning method consists of a comprehensive model that includes the definition of a multi-mode access mechanism inside the chip and a search algorithm for the exploration of the design space. The access mechanism model considers the reuse of functional connections as well as partial test buses, cores transparency, and other bypass modes. The test schedule is defined in conjunction with the access mechanism so that good trade-offs among the costs of pins, area, and test time can be sought. Furthermore, system power constraints are also considered. This expansion of concerns makes it possible an efficient, yet fine-grained search, in the huge design space of a reuse-based environment. Experimental results clearly show the variety of trade-offs that can be explored using the proposed model, and its effectiveness on optimizing the system test plan. Networks-on-chip are likely to become the main communication platform of systemson- chip. Thus, the second approach presented in this work proposes the reuse of the on-chip network for the test of the cores embedded into the systems that use this communication platform. A power-aware test scheduling algorithm aiming at exploiting the network characteristics to minimize the system test time is presented. The reuse strategy is evaluated considering a number of system configurations, such as different positions of the cores in the network, power consumption constraints and number of interfaces with the tester. Experimental results show that the parallelization capability of the network can be exploited to reduce the system test time, whereas area and pin overhead are strongly minimized. In this manuscript, the main problems of the test of core-based systems are firstly identified and the current solutions are discussed. The problems being tackled by this thesis are then listed and the test planning approaches are detailed. Both test planning techniques are validated for the recently released ITC’02 SoC Test Benchmarks, and further compared to other test planning methods of the literature. This comparison confirms the efficiency of the proposed methods.

Uma análise de aspectos relacionados ao desenvolvimento e adoção de Enterprise Resources Planning livre de código aberto

Sistemas Integrados de Gestão ou Enterprise Resources Planning - ERP possibilitam o processamento das informações necessárias em uma empresa usando um único banco de dados. Muito tem se escrito sobre este tipo de software, abordando questões como o alto custo da aquisição de licenças, e a dependência de consultoria para a sua adaptação e implantação nas empresas. Atualmente vem crescendo o desenvolvimento e uso de ERP Livre de Código Aberto (FOS-ERP). Porém verifica-se que este tipo de sistema ainda não é suficientemente explorado, mesmo no meio acadêmico. Este artigo relata alguns trabalhos publicados sobre o assunto e levanta questões que devem ser tratadas por pesquisadores e demais interessados para adequar e viabilizar o uso desses sistemas conforme a realidade nacional. Assim, após uma introdução ao tema, são apresentadas algumas diferenças entre o FOS-ERP e seus equivalentes proprietários (Proprietary ERP ou P-ERP) em termos de modelos de negócios, seleção, customização e evolução. em seguida são elencados alguns desafios e oportunidades que o FOS-ERP pode oferecer a usuários, fornecedores, pesquisadores e colaboradores individuais. Concluindo, este artigo busca ampliar a discussão sobre FOS-ERP, destacando fatores tais como seu potencial de inovação tecnológica e estratégias de negócios.

A Bilevel Approach to Transmission Expansion Planning Within a Market Environment

We present a bilevel model for transmission expansion planning within a market environment, where producers and consumers trade freely electric energy through a pool. The target of the transmission planner, modeled through the upper-level problem, is to minimize network investment cost while facilitating energy trading. This upper-level problem is constrained by a collection of lower-level market clearing problems representing pool trading, and whose individual objective functions correspond to social welfare. Using the duality theory the proposed bilevel model is recast as a mixed-integer linear programming problem, which is solvable using branch-and-cut solvers. Detailed results from an illustrative example and a case study are presented and discussed. Finally, some relevant conclusions are drawn.

Specialised branch-and-bound algorithm for transmission network expansion planning

An algorithm is presented that finds the optimal plan long-term transmission for till cases studied, including relatively large and complex networks. The knowledge of optimal plans is becoming more important in the emerging competitive environment, to which the correct economic signals have to be sent to all participants. The paper presents a new specialised branch-and-bound algorithm for transmission network expansion planning. Optimality is obtained at a cost, however: that is the use of a transportation model for representing the transmission network, in this model only the Kirchhoff current law is taken into account (the second law being relaxed). The expansion problem then becomes an integer linear program (ILP) which is solved by the proposed branch-and-bound method without any further approximations. To control combinatorial explosion the branch- and bound algorithm is specialised using specific knowledge about the problem for both the selection of candidate problems and the selection of the next variable to be used for branching. Special constraints are also used to reduce the gap between the optimal integer solution (ILP program) and the solution obtained by relaxing the integrality constraints (LP program). Tests have been performed with small, medium and large networks available in the literature.

ENERGY GENERATION EXPANSION PLANNING MODEL CONSIDERING EMISSIONS CONSTRAINTS

The generation expansion planning (GEP) problem consists in determining the type of technology, size, location and time at which new generation units must be integrated to the system, over a given planning horizon, to satisfy the forecasted energy demand. Over the past few years, due to an increasing awareness of environmental issues, different approaches to solve the GEP problem have included some sort of environmental policy, typically based on emission constraints. This paper presents a linear model in a dynamic version to solve the GEP problem. The main difference between the proposed model and most of the works presented in the specialized literature is the way the environmental policy is envisaged. Such policy includes: i) the taxation of CO(2) emissions, ii) an annual Emissions Reduction Rate (ERR) in the overall system, and iii) the gradual retirement of old inefficient generation plants. The proposed model is applied in an 11-region to design the most cost-effective and sustainable 10-technology US energy portfolio for the next 20 years.

CPITN: time and cost estimates for periodontal prevention and treatment procedures.

The aim of this study was to estimate the necessary time and cost for periodontal prevention and treatment in a working population from sugar and alcohol refineries in Araraquara, SP, Brazil. A stratified sample of 528 employees aged 18-64 from administrative, industrial and agricultural staffs was examined by one examiner, previously trained, according to the community periodontal index of treatment needs (CPITN). The time required for procedures and the cost was extrapolated to the total worker population. The results showed that the estimated time required for periodontal prevention/treatment was 4527 hours. Of this time, 1783 hours were required for oral hygiene instruction, 2531 for scaling, 151 for surgery and 62 for maintenance. The cost would be US $17,655 for hiring a dentist for 8 hours/day to provide oral hygiene instruction, scaling, surgery and maintenance. However, the cost would be US $9,028 for hiring a dentist for 4 hours/day to provide surgery and maintenance and a dental hygienist for 8 hours/day to provide scaling and oral hygiene instruction. Taking into account epidemiologic, technical and economic aspects, the decision relating to manpower should be this second option.

Development of a low-cost mobile mapping system: A South American experience

This paper presents the prototype of a low-cost terrestrial mobile mapping system (MMS) composed of a van, two digital video cameras, two GPS receivers, a notebook computer, and a sound frame synchronisation system. The imaging sensors are mounted as a stereo video camera on top of the vehicle together with the GPS antennae. The GPS receivers and the notebook computer are configured to record data referred to the vehicle position at a planned time interval. This position is subsequently transferred to the road images. This set of equipment and methods provide the opportunity to merge distinct techniques to make topographic maps and also to build georeferenced road image databases. Both vector maps and raster image databases, when integrated appropriately, can give spatial researchers and engineers a new technique whose application may realise better planning and analysis related to the road environment. The experimental results proved that the MMS developed at the São Paulo State University is an effective approach to inspecting road pavements, to map road marks and traffic signs, electric power poles, telephone booths, drain pipes, and many other applications important to people's safety and welfare. A small number of wad images have already been captured by the prototype as a consequence of its application in distinct projects. An efficient organisation of those images and the prompt access to them justify the need for building a georeferenced image database. By expanding it, both at the hardware and software levels, it is possible for engineers to analyse the entire road environment on their office computers.

Planning of secondary distribution circuits through evolutionary algorithms

In this work, the planning of secondary distribution circuits is approached as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem (MINLP). In order to solve this problem, a dedicated evolutionary algorithm (EA) is proposed. This algorithm uses a codification scheme, genetic operators, and control parameters, projected and managed to consider the specific characteristics of the secondary network planning. The codification scheme maps the possible solutions that satisfy the requirements in order to obtain an effective and low-cost projected system-the conductors' adequate dimensioning, load balancing among phases, and the transformer placed at the center of the secondary system loads. An effective algorithm for three-phase power flow is used as an auxiliary methodology of the EA for the calculation of the fitness function proposed for solutions of each topology. Results for two secondary distribution circuits are presented, whereas one presents radial topology and the other a weakly meshed topology. © 2005 IEEE.

Evolutionary multi-move path-relinking for transmission network expansion planning

This paper presents the application of a new metaheuristic algorithm to solve the transmission expansion planning problem. A simple heuristic, using a relaxed network model associated with cost perturbation, is applied to generate a set of high quality initial solutions with different topologies. The population is evolved using a multi-move path-relinking with the objective of finding minimum investment cost for the transmission expansion planning problem employing the DC representation. The algorithm is tested on the southern Brazilian system, obtaining the optimal solution for the system with better performance than similar metaheuristics algorithms applied to the same problem. ©2010 IEEE.