Дисертації з теми "Maximal policy"

Les modèles d'appariements aléatoires représentent de nombreux systèmes stochastiques concrets dans lesquels des éléments de différentes classes sont appariés selon des règles de compatibilités spécifiées. Par exemple, on peut citer les systèmes dédiés à l'allocation d'organes, les sites de recherche d'emplois, de logements, etc. De tels modèles sont toujours associés à un triptyque d'éléments : un graphe connexe, dit de compatibilités, dont les sommets représentent les classes des éléments pouvant entrer dans le systèmeet dont chaque arête relie deux classes compatibles, une politique d'appariements permettant de décider, en cas d'incertitude, quels appariements vont s'effectuer à l'intérieur du système, et un taux d'arrivées selon lequel les éléments entrent en son sein. Dans cette thèse, nous considérons des graphes généralisés, c'est-à-dire que l'on autorise l'appariement de deux éléments de la même classe, et nous étendons donc à ce cadre certains résultats déjà connus dans le cas de graphes simples. La stabilité d'un système régi par un modèle d'appariements est une propriété très importante. En effet, elle assure que les admissions au sein du système étudié sont contrôlées de sorte que les éléments ne restent pas bloqués à l'intérieur et que leur nombre n'augmente pas indéfiniment. Il est donc essentiel que le taux d'arrivées des éléments permette au système d'être stable. Dans ce manuscrit, nous caractérisons de manière algébrique cette zone de stabilité pour certains modèles d'appariements (généraux, généraux avec abandons, bipartis, bipartis étendus) ou de files d'attente, dites skill-based. Par ailleurs, nous démontrons que la politique d'appariements dite First Come, First Matched (FCFM) possède la propriété d'être maximale (généralisée), c'est-à-dire que la zone de stabilité du modèle d'appariements général associé à un graphe de compatibilités et à une politique quelconque est toujours incluse dans celle associée à ce même graphe et à FCFM. Notons que cette dernière coïncide alors avec un ensemble de mesures défini par des conditions purement algébriques. Dans ce cas, la question de l'étude des mesures permettant la stabilité des systèmes régis par un modèle d'appariements revient donc à celle, plus élémentaire, de la caractérisation d'un ensemble déterministe. Nous donnons alors un moyen de construction (simple) des mesures appartenant à celui-ci, ce qui peut s'avérer très utile pour calibrer le contrôle d'accès au système. En effet, la vérification algorithmique qu'une mesure quelconque vérifie ces conditions algébriques nécessite un nombre d'opérations polynomial en le nombre de sommets du graphe, et devient donc très coûteuse à mesure que ce cardinal augmente. Nous explicitons également, sous une forme produit, l'expression de la loi stationnaire de l'évolution temporelle du contenu d'un système stable régi par un modèle d'appariements général et sous la politique FCFM, permettant, notamment, de calculer explicitement des caractéristiques à l'équilibre de systèmes concrets et d'estimer leurs performances en temps long. On peut ainsi, par exemple, calculer la taille moyenne à l'équilibre d'une liste d'attente dans le cadre de dons croisés de reins, ou encore, estimer le temps moyen d'attente sur une interface pair-à-pair ou un site de rencontres.Enfin, les taux d'appariements associés à un modèle d'appariements (général ou biparti étendu) stable sont étudiés. Ils sont définis comme étant les fréquences asymptotiques des appariements réalisés et fournissent un critère de performance des systèmes régis par de tels modèles d'appariements, de même que les propriétés de politique-insensibilité et d'équité de ces taux, qui sont également discutées
Stochastic matching models represent many concrete stochastic systems in which elements of different classes are matched according to specified compatibility rules. For example, we can cite systems dedicated to organs allocation, job search sites, housing allocation programs, etc. Such models are typically associated to a triplet of elements: a connected graph, called compatibility graph, whose vertices represent the classes of elements that can enter the system and whose edges connect two compatible classes, amatching policy which decides the matches to be concretely executed, in case of multiple choices, and an arrival rate according to which the elements enter within it. In this thesis, we consider generalized graphs, meaning that we allow the matching of two elements of the same class, and we therefore extend to this framework some results already known in the case of simple graphs.The stability of a system governed by a matching model is a very important property. It ensures that the admissions within the system under study, are regulated, so that the elements do not accumulate in the system in the long run. It is therefore essential that the arrival rate of the elements allows the system to be stable. In this manuscript, we characterize, algebraically, this stability region for some matching models (general, general with reneging, bipartite, extended bipartite) or skill-based queueing systems.Moreover, we demonstrate that the matching policy called First Come, First Matched (FCFM) has the property of being (generalized) maximal, meaning that the stability region of the general matching model associated with a compatibility graph and with any policy is always included in the one associated with this same graph and ruled by FCFM. Note that this latter then coincides with a set of measures defined by purely algebraic conditions. In this case, the study of stability of the matching model at hand boils down to the more elementary question of characterizing of a deterministic set of measures. We then givea (simple) way to construct the measures belonging to the latter set. This turns out to be very useful for admission control, as checking the algebraic conditions requires a number of operations which is polynomial in the number of vertices of the considered compatibility graph, and therefore becomes very expensive as the number of vertices grows large.We also give, in a product form, the expression of the stationary distribution of the number-in-system process of a stable system governed by a general matching model and under the FCFM policy, allowing, in particular, to explicitly calculate characteristics at equilibrium of concrete systems and to estimate their long-time performance. We can thus, for example, calculate the size average at equilibrium of a waiting list in the case of cross-donation of kidneys, or even, estimate the average waiting time on a peer-to-peerinterface or on a dating website.Finally, the matching rates associated with a stable matching model (general or extended bipartite) are studied. They are defined as the asymptotic frequencies of the executed respective matchings, and provide an insightful performance criterion for the corresponding matching systems, as well as the policy-insensitivity and fairness properties of the matching rates, which are also discussed

Turkey moves towards integration with EU since 1963. The membership will involve full liberalization of trade in agricultural products with EU. The impact of liberalization depends on the path of agricultural policies in Turkey and the EU. On the other hand, agricultural protection continues to be the most controversial issue in global trade negotiations of World Trade Organization (WTO). To evaluate the impacts of policy scenarios, an economic modeling approach based on non-linear mathematical programming is appropriate. This thesis analyzes the impacts of economic integration with the EU and the potential effects of the application of a new WTO agreement in 2015 on Turkish agriculture using an agricultural sector model. The basic approach is Maximum Entropy based Positive Mathematical Programming of Heckelei and Britz (1999). The model is based on a static optimization algorithm. Following an economic integration with EU, the net export of crops declines and can not tolerate the boom in net import of livestock products. Overall welfare affect is small. Consumers benefit from declining prices. Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) supports are determinative for the welfare of producers. WTO simulation shows that a 15 percent reduction in Turkey&rsquo
s binding WTO tariff commitments will increase net meat imports by USD 250 million.

Water quality has evolved legislatively from protection of navigation routes and quantity of sources to more emphasis on impairments on water quality for surface and groundwater sources. Nonpoint or diffuse sources of impairments represents a major challenge for management due to the complexity of its sources and difficulty in tracking. The most cited sections on public policy analysis focuses on the overall process agencies employ to understand the results the program yields. Often overlooked are finer details and mechanisms, such as decision-making and priority setting, which have a great impact on the overall process. To investigate these factors, we need to analyze the decision-making process used by managers. This study focuses on using information from those with direct involvement in the establishment and implementation of the Total Maximum Daily Load program for the state of Florida. This study used decision-making analysis models from Rational-Decision-Making and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis concepts to construct questionnaires that looks to develop priorities as seen by managers’ preferences for several presented options. This methodology allowed us to structure the viewpoints and processes water quality managers use to breakdown decisions. The analyzed results show water quality managers prefer strong management options, involvement from stakeholders with scientific knowledge, and data collected from the source or point of impact. Interestingly, opinions in the group show that urban best management practices are considered more effective than their agriculture counterparts with a disfavor for volunteer derived data. Ultimately, the survey highlights the need for more robust enforcement and reliable measurement of non-point source of impairments. Continued public outreach and education, especially through workshops, are denoted as important tasks to completing successful TMDLs and should be expanded and strengthened by both the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and its boundary programs.

Water quality has evolved legislatively from protection of navigation routes and quantity of sources to more emphasis on impairments on water quality for surface and groundwater sources. Nonpoint or diffuse sources of impairments represents a major challenge for management due to the complexity of its sources and difficulty in tracking.

The most cited sections on public policy analysis focuses on the overall process agencies employ to understand the results the program yields. Often overlooked are finer details and mechanisms, such as decision-making and priority setting, which have a great impact on the overall process. To investigate these factors, we need to analyze the decision-making process used by managers.

This study focuses on using information from those with direct involvement in the establishment and implementation of the Total Maximum Daily Load program for the state of Florida. This study used decision-making analysis models from Rational-Decision-Making and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis concepts to construct questionnaires that looks to develop priorities as seen by managers’ preferences for several presented options. This methodology allowed us to structure the viewpoints and processes water quality managers use to breakdown decisions.

The analyzed results show water quality managers prefer strong management options, involvement from stakeholders with scientific knowledge, and data collected from the source or point of impact. Interestingly, opinions in the group show that urban best management practices are considered more effective than their agriculture counterparts with a disfavor for volunteer derived data.

Ultimately, the survey highlights the need for more robust enforcement and reliable measurement of non-point source of impairments. Continued public outreach and education, especially through workshops, are denoted as important tasks to completing successful TMDLs and should be expanded and strengthened by both the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and its boundary programs.

Most of the past research on the problem of deadlock avoidance for complex resource allocation systems (RAS) has acknowledged the fact that the computation of the maximally permissive (optimal) deadlock avoidance policy (DAP) possesses super-polynomial complexity for most RAS classes, and therefore, it has resorted to solutions that trade off maximal permissiveness for computational tractability. In this work, we distinguish between the off-line and the on-line computation that is required for the effective implementation of the maximally permissive DAP, and we seek to develop representations of this policy that will require minimal on-line computation. The particular representation that we adopt is that of a compact classifier that will effect the underlying dichotomy of the reachable state space into safe and unsafe subspaces. Through a series of reductions of the derived classification problem, we are also able to attain extensive reductions in the computational complexity of the off-line task of the construction of the sought classifier. In a first study of the aforementioned problem, we restrict our attention to a particular RAS class that is motivated by an ongoing project called Gadara. This particular RAS class accepts the separation of the safe and unsafe subspaces of its instantiations through a set of linear inequalities. We propose design procedures that will construct a classifier employing the minimum possible number of linear inequalities, and we formally establish their "completeness", i.e., their ability to provide an effective classifier for every instance of the considered RAS class. We also offer heuristics that, if necessary, can alleviate the computational effort that is necessary for the construction of the sought classifier. We extend the aforementioned results to encompass more general RAS classes, where the sought dichotomy might not be represented by a set of linear inequalities. To this end, we propose new parametric and non-parametric classification schemes for this more complex case, and establish formally their completeness. We also provide effective and computationally efficient procedures for the synthesis of the sought classifiers. A bottleneck in the developments described above is defined by the fact that they presuppose the availability of the enumerations of the RAS safe and unsafe subspaces. To address this obstacle, we propose a novel approach for the deployment of the maximally permissive DAP for RAS, that is based on the identification and the efficient storage of a critical subset of states of the underlying RAS state space. In particular, the proposed algorithm provides those critical states, while avoiding the complete enumeration of the RAS state space. Furthermore, we extend the existing theory on maximally permissive deadlock avoidance, so that it can handle RAS with reader/writer (R/W) locks. A key challenge that is posed by this new RAS class stems from the fact that the underlying state space is not necessarily finite. We effectively address this obstacle by taking advantage of special structure that exists in the set of unsafe states and enables a finite representation of this set through its minimal elements. Finally, we would like to mention that numerical experimentation demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed approaches, and establishes their ability to support the deployment of maximally permissive DAP for RAS with very large structure and state spaces. To the best of our knowledge, these experiments also establish the ability of the proposed methodology to effectively compute tractable implementations of the maximally permissive DAP for problem instances significantly beyond the capacity of any other approach currently available in the literature. Moreover, this is the first work to address the RAS with R/W locks.

This thesis provides insights into, additional commentary on and analysis of the fundamental role of resources in advancing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESC rights). Its objective is to expand the policy space within which States can operate to fulfil their obligations related to these rights. It addresses a number of central questions about the resource dimension of ESC rights policy, including interpretation of the concept of ‘maximum available resources’ in the context of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). By applying a cross-disciplinary approach, the thesis investigates legal, economic and public policy dimensions of resource mobilisation, allocation and governance that are essential in advancing progressive realisation of ESC rights. This thesis proposes that the obligation to take steps to the ‘maximum available resources’ for the progressive realisation of ESC rights can be made more meaningful by adopting a broader interpretation of the concept of resources and by taking active steps to maximise the quality and quantity of resources available through public sector revenue, international assistance and co-operation and private sector investment, all of which can be enhanced through institutional mechanisms and processes of allocation and governance. This proposition is supported by an in-depth qualitative analysis of relevant ESC rights literature, interpretive works of the ESCR Committee and Special Rapporteurs, periodic reports of States, institutional documents and case studies, which provide evidence on the current understanding and application of the concept of resources in this context. Based on analysis of multiple sources of evidence on State practice, this thesis presents a cross-disciplinary model of the nature, scope and policy dimensions of resources for ESC rights and suggests how concerted State policy efforts can optimise their impact on the realisation of ESC rights.

Thesis (S.M. in Technology and Policy)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2011.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-112).
Renewable energy resources are stochastic with seasonal and diurnal patterns, making electricity generation by these resources difficult to predict, and making it difficult to plan future generation expansion. Understanding these patterns is critical in determining whether various renewable energy sources compound or compete against one another. Renewable generation may reach highest output at periods of low demand, or their lowest output during periods of high demand. Short-term electricity storage could provide load-leveling for short periods of time, storing electricity for later use. Further, momentary and hourly changes in renewable generation make it hard to maintain electrical stability in the system when large quantities of these sources are installed. Sufficient reserves must be maintained to meet electricity demand at all times, but these reserves - usually fossil generation units - may displace renewable energy generation. Energy storage could help maintain reliability and ensure that sufficient energy is produced to meet demand, while minimizing the use of fossil fuel from traditional generation sources and providing carbon-free spinning reserves. This research characterizes wind and hydro generation patterns in the Azores. For example, in Flores it was found that winter had highest renewable generation potential, but low electricity demand, and that summer had the highest demand, but fairly low renewable energy potential. This research then investigated the extent to which additional renewable capacity could be added to the Flores electricity system and the impact of energy storage on achieving higher renewable energy penetration. It was found that adding additional renewable capacity always increased the amount of renewable energy generation and reduced average annual production costs. Adding storage to the system increased renewable energy generation by 10% and reduced annual production costs by 16%. In addition, storage in amounts greater than 1 MWh had diminishing returns, and the largest benefit of energy storage was its ability to act as a spinning reserve, allowing diesel units to turn off.
by Pamela DeAmicis.
S.M.in Technology and Policy

A stochastic processing network is a system that takes materials of various kinds as inputs, and uses processing resources to produce other materials as outputs. Such a network provides a powerful abstraction of a wide range of real world, complex systems, including semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities, networks of data switches, and large-scale call centers. Key performance measures of a stochastic processing network include throughput, cycle time, and holding cost. The network performance can dramatically be affected by the choice of operational policies. We propose a family of operational policies called maximum pressure policies. The maximum pressure policies are attractive in that their implementation uses minimal state information of the network. The deployment of a resource (server) is decided based on the queue lengths in its serviceable buffers and the queue lengths in their immediate downstream buffers. In particular, the decision does not use arrival rate information that is often difficult or impossible to estimate reliably. We prove that a maximum pressure policy can maximize throughput for a general class of stochastic processing networks. We also establish an asymptotic optimality of maximum pressure policies for stochastic processing networks with a unique bottleneck. The optimality is in terms of minimizing workload process. A key step in the proof of the asymptotic optimality is to show that the network processes under maximum pressure policies exhibit a state space collapse.

Bone is a plastic tissue, changing in density and size with different levels of stress. Furthermore, it appears that BMD is altered in a site specific manner. However, BMD has not been studied extensively in all types of athletes, particularly well trained strengthpower athletes, such as throwers. The pwpose of this study was to examine the BMD of USA Division I collegiate throwers (shot put, discus, etc.). BMD was compared to normative data and to different athletes. Measures of whole body maximum strength and throwing performance were correlated with BMDs. Potential right/left side and sex differences were examined. Athletes were 4 males, 3 females age 19.9 ± 0.9 years. BMD was measured with a DEXA Maximum isometric strength was measured using a midthigh pull standing on a force plate. Force time-curves were generated during the strength tests. Peale force (PF) and normalized pealc force (PFa) were correlated with BMDs. Comparison indicates throwers have denser bones compared to normative data and compared to other types of athletes. Male throwers tend to have greater total body BMD than female throwers (p < 0.05). Dominant arm showed slightly greater BMD compared to non-dominant (p < 0.05). Furthermore, BMD is related to PF (r = 0.68) and PFa (r = 0.56). Throwers have greater BMD's than non-athletes or most other types of athletes. However, throwers showed only a small indication of sidedness. These observations likely stem from their training program (whole body heavy loading).

Concern about environmental injustice has been driving the recent effort to characterize risks from exposures to air toxics at very fine spatial resolutions. However, few studies seek to understand the potential policy implications of regulating risks at increasingly finer spatial resolutions and the impact of resulting policies on distribution of risks. To address this gap, the broad question for this research is how could the choice of spatial resolution for regulation of risks from toxic air pollutants affect emission controls and the consequences thereof? This research develops a formal model of a hypothetical decision maker choosing emission controls within a risk-based regulatory framework. The model suggests that optimal controls on air toxics emissions vary depending on the spatial resolution chosen to regulate risks; net social costs are non-decreasing as one regulates at finer and finer spatial resolutions. An empirical application of the model using air toxic emission data for Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties in Florida demonstrates the sensitivity of optimal emissions to spatial resolution chosen for regulation. The research then investigates the equity implications of regulating at different spatial resolutions with regard to the spatial distribution of cancer risks. The empirical results indicate that regulation at finer spatial resolutions could involve a tradeoff between costs and equitable distribution of risks. For example, at a threshold cancer risk of 100 in a million, regulating at census block level resolution could be twice as costly as regulating at census tract resolution while reducing the maximum individual risk by almost half. Further, regulation at finer spatial resolutions might not address environmental injustice by itself unless such concerns are more explicitly incorporated into emission control decisions. Finally, this research shows that spatial resolution at which air toxics risks are regulated could matter in predictable ways even after taking into account the uncertainties that the decision maker faces.

This article intends to analyze treatment and functions assigned to the penalty by our Peruvian Constitution and the way this legal institution is conducted at the prescribed basic penalty level (imposed by the legislator ineach type of criminal offence), the specific penalty level (imposed by the judge according to its individual characteristics in each case) and at the penitentiary enforcement level. Finally recommends some considerations for carrying out a possible legislative reform in accordance with a criminal policy plan within our constitutional framework.
El presente trabajo busca efectuar un análisis en torno al tratamiento y las funciones que nuestra Constitución política asigna a la pena, y la manera como dicha institución se desarrolla en nuestro país con respectoa la pena abstracta (la impuesta por el legislador en cada tipo penal), la pena concreta (la impuesta por el juez luego de una individualización en cada casoconcreto), y su ejecución en el ámbito penitenciario. Finaliza proponiendo algunas consideraciones para una eventual reforma legislativa conforme conun plan de política criminal que se encuentre dentro del marco constitucional.

This paper proposes a new panel data structural gravity approach for estimating the trade and welfare effects of Brexit. The suggested Constrained Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Estimator exhibits some useful properties for trade policy analysis and allows to obtain estimates and confidence intervals which are consistent with structural trade theory. Assuming different counterfactual post-Brexit scenarios, our main findings suggest that UKs (EUs) exports of goods to the EU (UK) are likely to decline within a range between 7.2% and 45.7% (5.9% and 38.2%) six years after the Brexit has taken place. For the UK, the negative trade effects are only partially offset by an increase in domestic goods trade and trade with third countries, inducing a decline in UKs real income between 1.4% and 5.7% under the hard Brexit scenario. The estimated welfare effects for the EU are negligible in magnitude and statistically not different from zero.
Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

La diversité des accords bilatéraux a constitué un moyen pour l'Union européenne d'étendre ses compétences externes. Cela rend compte du volontarisme mais surtout du pragmatisme de son action extérieure, ce qui n'est pas sans poser de problèmes.La mise en cohérence des accords bilatéraux devient alors une exigence impérieuse. Cette rationalisation des accords devra être confortée par un schéma institutionnel rénové autant que par la reformulation synthétique des fondements juridiques de la compétence externe de l'Union européenne
The different bilateral agreement is a tool for the European Union to wide its external competences. This illustrates it voluntarism but even more it pragmatism of it external action, what is not without raise problems.The harmonization of bilateral agreements is a very strong need. This rationalization should be hold by an institutional scheme and by a reformulation of legal basis

An investigation into the impact of generalised maximum entropy solutions on the study of queues with or without arrival balking and their applications to congestion management in communication networks Keywords: Queues, Balking, Maximum Entropy (ME) Principle, Global Balance (GB), Queue Length Distribution (QLD), Generalised Geometric (GGeo), Generalised Exponential (GE), Generalised Discrete Half Normal (GdHN), Congestion Management, Packet Dropping Policy (PDP) Generalisations to links between discrete least biased (i.e. maximum entropy (ME)) distribution inferences and Markov chains are conjectured towards the performance modelling, analysis and prediction of general, single server queues with or without arrival balking. New ME solutions, namely the generalised discrete Half Normal (GdHN) and truncated GdHN (GdHNT) distributions are characterised, subject to appropriate mean value constraints, for inferences of stationary discrete state probability distributions. Moreover, a closed form global balance (GB) solution is derived for the queue length distribution (QLD) of the M/GE/1/K queue subject to extended Morse balking, characterised by a Poisson prospective arrival process, i.i.d. generalised exponential (GE) service times and finite capacity, K. In this context, based on comprehensive numerical experimentation, the latter GB solution is conjectured to be a special case of the GdHNT ME distribution. ii Owing to the appropriate operational properties of the M/GE/1/K queue subject to extended Morse balking, this queueing system is applied as an ME performance model of Internet Protocol (IP)-based communication network nodes featuring static or dynamic packet dropping congestion management schemes. A performance evaluation study in terms of the model’s delay is carried out. Subsequently, the QLD’s of the GE/GE/1/K censored queue subject to extended Morse balking under three different composite batch balking and batch blocking policies are solved via the technique of GB. Following comprehensive numerical experimentation, the latter QLD’s are also conjectured to be special cases of the GdHNT. Limitations of this work and open problems which have arisen are included after the conclusions

An investigation into the impact of generalised maximum entropy solutions on the study of queues with or without arrival balking and their applications to congestion management in communication networks Keywords: Queues, Balking, Maximum Entropy (ME) Principle, Global Balance (GB), Queue Length Distribution (QLD), Generalised Geometric (GGeo), Generalised Exponential (GE), Generalised Discrete Half Normal (GdHN), Congestion Management, Packet Dropping Policy (PDP) Generalisations to links between discrete least biased (i.e. maximum entropy (ME)) distribution inferences and Markov chains are conjectured towards the performance modelling, analysis and prediction of general, single server queues with or without arrival balking. New ME solutions, namely the generalised discrete Half Normal (GdHN) and truncated GdHN (GdHNT) distributions are characterised, subject to appropriate mean value constraints, for inferences of stationary discrete state probability distributions. Moreover, a closed form global balance (GB) solution is derived for the queue length distribution (QLD) of the M/GE/1/K queue subject to extended Morse balking, characterised by a Poisson prospective arrival process, i.i.d. generalised exponential (GE) service times and finite capacity, K. In this context, based on comprehensive numerical experimentation, the latter GB solution is conjectured to be a special case of the GdHNT ME distribution. ii Owing to the appropriate operational properties of the M/GE/1/K queue subject to extended Morse balking, this queueing system is applied as an ME performance model of Internet Protocol (IP)-based communication network nodes featuring static or dynamic packet dropping congestion management schemes. A performance evaluation study in terms of the model’s delay is carried out. Subsequently, the QLD’s of the GE/GE/1/K censored queue subject to extended Morse balking under three different composite batch balking and batch blocking policies are solved via the technique of GB. Following comprehensive numerical experimentation, the latter QLD’s are also conjectured to be special cases of the GdHNT. Limitations of this work and open problems which have arisen are included after the conclusions.

Healthcare systems require continuous monitoring of risk to prevent adverse events. Risk analysis is a time consuming activity that depends on the background of analysts and available data. Patient safety data is often incomplete and biased. This research proposes systematic approaches to monitor risk in healthcare using available patient safety data. The methodologies combine traditional healthcare risk analysis methods with safety theory concepts, in an innovative manner, to allocate available evidence to potential risk sources throughout the system. We propose the use of data mining to analyze near-miss reports and guide the identification of risk sources. In addition, we propose a Maximum-Entropy based approach to monitor risk sources and prioritize investigation efforts accordingly. The products of this research are intended to facilitate risk analysis and allow for timely identification of risks to prevent harm to patients.

First of all, general principals of contemporary macroeconometric models are described in this dissertation together with a brief sketch of alternative approaches. Consequently, the macroeconomic model of a monetary policy is formulated in order to describe fundamental relationships between real and nominal economy. The model originated from a linear one by making some of the parameters endogenous. Despite this nonlinearity, I expressed my model in a state space form with time-varying coefficients, which can be solved by a standard Kalman filter. Using outcomes of this algorithm, likelihood function was then calculated and maximized in order to obtain estimates of the parameters. The theory of identifiability of a parametric structure is also described. Finally, the presented theory is applied on the formulated model of the euro area. In this model, the European Central Bank was assumed to behave according to the Taylor rule. The econometric estimation, however, showed that this common assumption in macroeconomic modeling is not adequate in this case. The results from econometric estimation and analysis of identifiability also indicated that the interest rate policy of the European Central Bank has only a very limited effect on real economic activity of the European Union. Both results are influential, as monetary policy in the last two decades has been modeled as interest rate policy with the Taylor rule in most macroeconometric models.

碩士
中原大學
企業管理研究所
103
The globalized market, in now a days, emphasizes that the ultimate goal and sustainable mission of the enterprise are to seek the maximum profit by the business model consisted of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and inventory management on end- customer side; in this model, the sellers always seek the minimum cost by properly controlling the inventory with a inventory management strategy and forecasting of inventory. Failure to apply inventory management properly will result in surplus or shortage of demand and the impact of loss or mismanagement. In order to prevent the shortage of inventory and mismanagement and maintain the certain level of inventory to satisfy the fill rate, this study will focus on the optimum methodology of inventory management. In this paper, Soni &; Shah (2008) propose a non-fixed constant demand rate and with the inventory change. This paper tries to establish a pattern in the non-fixed constant demand and with the inventory change direction for research in time to solve the present value analysis unit view the best revenue model. With a different way of mathematical derivation, held to discuss a commodity broker is a loss characteristics dependent on the demand and inventory levels, the use of methods analyze the smallest unit of time to prove the existence of the cost function, and get the optimal order cycle time and order quantities. After the result against another in order to explore the impact profits also considering the purchase of goods produced will affect the sales rate of depletion and profitability, because paper stressed that the full optimization of the conditions for the needs of its profits as a function of mathematical models of architecture, under this hypothesis in net present value of total sales profit of cycle time = (current income of the cycle time - the total cost of the present value of the cycle time), use the analysis equation to verify the best profit model is true. Numerical analysis through profit function by the second differential proved less than zero, confirmed that the maximum profit is there.

碩士
國立中興大學
應用數學系
88
In this thesis, the maximum entropy principle is used to analyze the N policy M/G/1 queueing system. We first derive the steady state solutions for the N policy M/G/1 queueing system by using the maximum entropy principle. Next, we use the derived results to obtain the mean waiting time in the queue. Finally, we present numerical comparisons between the established exact results and the corresponding approximate results to the ordinary M/M/1, M/E2/1, and M/H2/1 queueing systems and the N policy M/M/1, M/E2/1, and M/H2/1 queueing systems.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
資訊管理研究所
89
The advent of high-speed networking has introduced new applications such as video conference and voice over IP. These applications have stringent performance requirements in terms of throughputs, delay, delay jitter and loss rate. For corporations, they hope the bandwidth allocation can follows by some polices, e.g. business critical traffic can receive better quality of service then other traffic. Current the best-effort service model is not enough, because the performance of each session can degrade significantly when the network is overloaded, and it handle all traffic equally. When Internet gets more and more popular and powerful, users are less patient with the unpredictable quality of server of Internet. There is an urgent need to provide network services with performance guarantees and to support link sharing, which allows resource sharing among traffic that are grouped according to business-oriented polices, protocol, traffic type, administrative affiliation, and other criteria. In this work, we propose a hierarchical link sharing architecture and a new scheduling algorithm WF2Q-M. The link sharing architecture include a hierarchical links sharing service model and some good properties of resouce management, e.g. advance and periodic reservation, maximum rate control and a hierarchical Web interface for users. The packet scheduler WF2Q-M can simultaneously support maximum rate control and have good properties of WF2Q. By merging packet's eligible time into its virtual staring time and use WF2Q based algorithms, we can skip the packet regulator in the literatures' service model to support rate control. By changing the ratio of system real clock to virtual clock, WF2Q-M can be properly defined as variable-rate servers.

Degrowth is most commonly defined as a socially sustainable and equitable reduction (and eventually stabilization) of society’s throughput, where throughput refers to the materials and energy society extracts, processes, transports, and distributes, to consume and return back to the environment as waste. The origins of degrowth paradigm are traced back to the 1970’s and the Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and his work on entropy in economy. Over the last 50 years supporters of degrowth from academia and practice developed a large theoretical network of concepts and policy proposals designed to offer alternatives to modern economic system. This thesis builds on that work and explores degrowth policy proposals from a system dynamics perspective. To better understand the underlying causal structure it was necessary to go beyond information available in the literature. Experts in the field of degrowth were contacted by the means of an online questionnaire and the information collected was analyzed and used to develop a simulation model which is capable of testing validity of their claims. The results show that all four polices tested have the potential to positively impact socio-economic and environmental conditions and that the experts have a good understanding of possible dynamic consequences of implementing these policies. They also revealed some surprising unintended consequences and possibility of long term problems.

碩士
國立中興大學
應用數學系所
94
This thesis analyzes a single removable and unreliable server in the -policy M/G/1 queueing system in which the server breaks down according to a Poisson process and the repair time obeys an arbitrary distribution. We assume that when the number of customers in the system reaches N, turn the server on with probability p and leave it off with probability (1 − p). The use of maximum entropy approach is to develop the approximate formulae for the probability distributions of the number of customers and the expected waiting time in the system. We perform the comparative analysis between approximate results and exact results with four different service time and repair time distributions, including exponential,uniform, gamma, and deterministic. It appears from numerical results that the maximum entropy approach is sufficiently accurate for practical use and based on the maximum entropy approach , we demonstrate that the < p,N >-policy M/G(G)/1 queueing system is sufficiently robust to the variations of service time distribution and repair time distribution functions.

Ontario’s current regulatory approach to low-income housing lies between two primary challenges: the human right to housing, and political/fiscal constraints. This thesis draws on legal theory and economic analysis of law to articulate the proper goals of housing access policy. A structural theory is proposed to explain the normative relationship between efficiency, communitarianism and justice in housing. An array of regulatory options are compared and considered in light of the features that characterize Ontario’s low-income rental housing markets. This analysis favours demand-side housing subsidies to low-income households, combined with supply-side tax expenditures to improve elasticity in the low-income rental market. Further reform of rent and covenant controls, social and affordable housing supply, and land use planning is recommended to ensure an efficient residential tenancy market. These reforms are offered as a framework for the implementation of the human right to housing in Ontario.

碩士
大葉大學
休閒事業管理學系碩士班
107
The GM(1, 1) of grey system theory has been adopted in a variety of ranges, and it features forecasting through small amounts of data. This research predicts the New Southbound Policy's countries of tourists, length of stay, and tourism receipts by using GM(1, 1) and other four kinds modified GM(1, 1), which are modified 1-years-period GM(1, 1) model, modified 2-years-period GM(1, 1) model, modified 3-years-period GM(1, 1) and modified 4-years-period GM(1, 1) model. Meanwhile, forecasting the maximum capacity of three major regions tourists and tourism receipts by using Verhulst method. Among these five methods, the result of modified 1-years-period GM(1, 1) by starting in odd years is the best, and the mean error is 3.68%. The Verhulst method indicates that the maximum capacity of tourists and tourism receipts have reached the peak. The major finding of this study are summarized as follows: First, GM(1, 1) prediction is precise in forecasting tourists, length of stay, and tourism receipts. Second, forecasting through the modified 1-years-period GM(1, 1) by starting in odd years. All countries of tourists most have a growing trend. Above of then, New Zealand and Australia have the highest growth rate. Third, regarding the length of stay. Tour group of staying 8-15 days has the highest increase in the future. Fourth, the Verhulst method indicates that the maximum capacity of tourists has reached saturation from 2019 to 2020. Finally, the Verhulst model displays the maximum capacity of tourism receipts will be a supersaturated state and negative growth in 2019. Therefore, there is room for improvement in the government's New Southbound Policy. Hoping the results of this study will provide the tourism industry and relevant government department as references for planning the tourism policy and related strategy. Key Words : grey prediction, the New Southbound Policy, length of stay, tourism receipts, maximum capacity

In the Internet of Things (IoT), devices such as sensors and actuators will almost invariably be connected to the Internet via wireless networks. The sensor and actuator devices in such systems will be resource challenged with constraints on the energy available to them, and on their computing, storage, and communication capabilities. Hence, the control strategies in such systems should be light-weight, and decentralised, requiring very little information exchange. With these observations in mind, the central theme of the work reported in this thesis is the development of wireless scheduling protocols, in a timeslotted setting, that require little state information and are amenable to decentralized implementation, while ensuring throughput optimality and even low mean packet delays in some cases. The thesis is divided into two parts. • In Part 1, – We study the problem of scheduling in collocated networks, wherein every node can listen to the transmissions of every other node. Motivated by a certain modification to the time slot structure that facilitates inferring activity on the channel, we derive a partial information framework within which we propose and analyse scheduling schemes. We then propose scheduling policies and analyse their stability and delay properties. – Next, we construct two completely decentralized protocols based on these results. Simulations show that the delay performance of the protocols is significantly better than that of existing protocols and, in fact, is very close to a centralized scheduler that has complete knowledge of the state of the system in every slot. This is important in light of the fact that our protocols are completely decentralized and also compute the schedule based on information gathered by the sensors only via sensing the channel for activity. – We also address the problem of short-term unfairness resulting from our low-delay scheduling policies and develop new policies to alleviate unfairness. We then propose modifications to our earlier protocols to handle alarm traffic (like uRLLC traffic being considered in the upcoming 5G standard) and show that the modified protocols provide low latency to such traffic, even in the presence of other data traffic in the system. part2 We move on to proposing reduced state scheduling policies for non-collocated networks. It should be noted that, while the scheduler that achieves minimum delay in collocated networks is known (in fact, it is not unique), such schedulers have been found for very few noncollocated networks. We begin by restricting our attention to a sub-class of scheduling policies, that take scheduling decisions based solely on the empty-nonempty status of the queues in the network. The state information for such networks is easy to disseminate (1 bit per queue) and hence makes them particularly suited to distributed implementation. – We begin by studying scheduling of transmissions on a class of networks called “path-graph networks.” These networks are characterized by interference graphs that are linear. We restrict ourselves to a further subclass of policies that are called Maximum Size Matching (MSM) policies and provide a complete characterization of the set of MSM policies for the case with N = 3 queues. As mentioned before, these policies do not require any information about the queues except their empty-nonempty status, which helps satisfy our reduced state space requirement. Our study has produced several interesting results about (in)stability and delay optimality. Specifically, we also show that the celebrated MaxWeight policy is not delay-optimal in such networks in a stochastic ordering sense (and hence, with respect to mean delay as well). – Continuing with path-graph networks, we later propose a “policy splicing” technique to combine policies for small networks to give rise to policies for larger networks. We use this technique to propose MSM scheduling policies for several such networks. We also provide an in-depth analysis of delay with MSM policies that culminates in a result which shows that there do not exist delay optimal MSM policies for such networks with N 4 queues. – Finally, we show how to extend our theory of MSM policies to schedule transmissions in a more general class of networks. We also propose and analyse multiple methods to further reduce the amount of state information (empty-nonempty statuses of the queues) that has to be exchanged across the network to make these protocols amenable to distributed implementation. Finally, we use this theory to propose a throughput optimal protocol wherein scheduling decisions are taken using only the information about activity on the channel (or lack thereof) that can be sensed by the nodes and study its stability performance in detail

While the linguistic concept of politeness has been thoroughly analyzed, the same does not apply to its interpreting. The present theoretical-empirical work describes the means for expressing politeness grouped by G. Leechʼs maxims of politeness. The empirical part analyzes recordings of simultaneous interpretation from media and European Parliament settings. This is a quantitative study and the outcome is the number of means for expressing politeness which the interpreters conveyed into Czech. On average and in all of the material 65,7 % of means for expressing politeness were conveyed into Czech in compliance with the maxims. The means analyzed are prosody, non-verbal communication, modality, personal reference, etc. An equivalent interpretation of means of politeness was deemed desirable. The thesis verifies the hypothesis whether the level of politeness significantly increased in comparison with the original speeches. Key words: politeness, pragmatics, illocutionary act, maxims of politeness, face, modality, prosody, non- verbal communication, Czech, English, interpreting, equivalence, US presidential debate, Obama, Romney, Common Agricultural Policy, European Parliament, Catherine Ashton, forms of address

An increasing trend of using macroprudential instrument, caps on loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, requires a full understanding of how the instrument works in practice. As the empirical research is still scant, this thesis attempts to contribute with a new evidence on LTV effectiveness in context of six developed economies, namely Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania. To achieve this objective we analyse the impact of caps on LTV on credit growth, mortgage credit-to- GDP ratio and price growth. LTV limits are not a harmonised measure and its national-level implementation includes numerous specificities that can hinder cross-country comparisons. As a result, this thesis proposes a construction of LTV index reflecting specific aspects of the measure. Using the LTV Index we confirmed a slowdown of credit, mortgage and price growth. JEL Classification E44, E51, E52, E58, G21 Key words caps on loan-to-value ratio, maximum LTV ratio, macroprudential policy, credit-related instruments, LTV Index, house price growth, credit growth, financial stability.