Approaches to integrated strategic/tactical forest planning

Traditionally forest planning is divided into a hierarchy of planning phases. Strategic planning is conducted to make decisions about sustainable harvest levels while taking into account legislation and policy issues. Within the frame of the strategic plan, the purpose of tactical planning is to schedule harvest operations to specific areas in the immediate few years and on a finer time scale than in the strategic plan. The operative phase focuses on scheduling harvest crews on a monthly or weekly basis, truck scheduling and choosing bucking instructions. Decisions at each level are to a varying degree supported by computerized tools. A problem that may arise when planning is divided into levels and that is noted in the literature focusing on decision support tools is that solutions at one level may be inconsistent with the results of another level. When moving from the strategic plan to the tactical plan, three sources of inconsistencies are often present; spatial discrepancies, temporal discrepancies and discrepancies due to different levels of constraint. The models used in the papers presented in this thesis approaches two of these discrepancies. To address the spatial discrepancies, the same spatial resolution has been used at both levels, i.e., stands. Temporal discrepancies are addressed by modelling the tactical and strategic issues simultaneously. Integrated approaches can yield large models. One way of circumventing this is to aggregate time and/or space. The first paper addresses the consequences of temporal aggregation in the strategic part of a mixed integer programming integrated strategic/tactical model. For reference, linear programming based strategic models are also used. The results of the first paper provide information on what temporal resolutions could be used and indicate that outputs from strategic and integrated plans are not particularly affected by the number of equal length strategic periods when more than five periods, i.e. about 20 year period length, are used. The approach used in the first paper could produce models that are very large, and the second paper provides a two-stage procedure that can reduce the number of variables and preserve the allocation of stands to the first 10 years provided by a linear programming based strategic plan, while concentrating tactical harvest activities using a penalty concept in a mixed integer programming formulation. Results show that it is possible to use the approach to concentrate harvest activities at the tactical level in a full scale forest management scenario. In the case study, the effects of concentration on strategic outputs were small, and the number of harvest tracts declined towards a minimum level. Furthermore, the discrepancies between the two planning levels were small

On the Property Rights System of the State Enterprises in China

Detailed analysis of spinal deformity is important within orthopaedic healthcare, in particular for assessment of idiopathic scoliosis. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing an image analysis method, capable of providing a full three-dimensional spine characterization. The proposed method is based on the registration of a highly detailed spine model to image data from computed tomography. The registration process provides an accurate segmentation of each individual vertebra and the ability to derive various measures describing the spinal deformity. The derived measures are estimated from landmarks attached to the spine model and transferred to the patient data according to the registration result. Evaluation of the method provides an average point-to-surface error of 0.9 mm ± 0.9 (comparing segmentations), and an average target registration error of 2.3 mm ± 1.7 (comparing landmarks). Comparing automatic and manual measurements of axial vertebral rotation provides a mean absolute difference of 2.5° ± 1.8, which is on a par with other computerized methods for assessing axial vertebral rotation. A significant advantage of our method, compared to other computerized methods for rotational measurements, is that it does not rely on vertebral symmetry for computing the rotational measures. The proposed method is fully automatic and computationally efficient, only requiring three to four minutes to process an entire image volume covering vertebrae L5 to T1. Given the use of landmarks, the method can be readily adapted to estimate other measures describing a spinal deformity by changing the set of employed landmarks. In addition, the method has the potential to be utilized for accurate segmentations of the vertebrae in routine computed tomography examinations, given the relatively low point-to-surface error

Optimal Trade-Off Between Economic Activity and Health During an Epidemic

This paper considers a simple model where a social planner can influence the spread-intensity of an infection wave, and, consequently, also the economic activity and population health, through a single parameter. Population health is assumed to only be negatively affected when the number of simultaneously infected exceeds health care capacity. The main finding is that if (i) the planner attaches a positive weight on economic activity and (ii) it is more harmful for the economy to be locked down for longer than shorter time periods, then the optimal policy is to (weakly) exceed health care capacity at some time.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

On the geometry and topology of initial data sets with horizons

We study the relationship between initial data sets with horizons and the existence of metrics of positive scalar curvature. We define a Cauchy Domain of Outer Communications (CDOC) to be an asymptotically flat initial set $(M, g, K)$ such that the boundary $\partial M$ of $M$ is a collection of Marginally Outer (or Inner) Trapped Surfaces (MOTSs and/or MITSs) and such that $M\setminus \partial M$ contains no MOTSs or MITSs. This definition is meant to capture, on the level of the initial data sets, the well known notion of the domain of outer communications (DOC) as the region of spacetime outside of all the black holes (and white holes). Our main theorem establishes that in dimensions $3\leq n \leq 7$, a CDOC which satisfies the dominant energy condition and has a strictly stable boundary has a positive scalar curvature metric which smoothly compactifies the asymptotically flat end and is a Riemannian product metric near the boundary where the cross sectional metric is conformal to a small perturbation of the initial metric on the boundary $\partial M$ induced by $g$. This result may be viewed as a generalization of Galloway and Schoen's higher dimensional black hole topology theorem \cite{GS06} to the exterior of the horizon. We also show how this result leads to a number of topological restrictions on the CDOC, which allows one to also view this as an extension of the initial data topological censorship theorem, established in \cite{EGP13} in dimension $n=3$, to higher dimensions.Comment: Final version. To appear in Asian Journal of Mathematic

Investigating the generality of time-local master equations

Time-local master equations are more generally applicable than is often recognised, but at first sight it would seem that they can only safely be used in time intervals where the time evolution is invertible. Using the Jaynes-Cummings model, we here construct an explicit example where two different Hamiltonians, corresponding to two different non-invertible and non-Markovian time evolutions, will lead to arbitrarily similar time-local master equations. This illustrates how the time-local master equation on its own in this case does not uniquely determine the time evolution. The example is nevertheless artificial in the sense that a rapid change in (at least) one of the Hamiltonians is needed. The change must also occur at a very specific instance in time. If a Hamiltonian is known not to have such very specific behaviour, but is "physically well-behaved", then one may conjecture that a time-local master equation also determines the time evolution when it is not invertible.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Comparing Open Source and Proprietary Enterprise Content Management Systems: Alfresco Compared to IBM Lotus Domino Document Manager Integrated with IBM Lotus WorkFlow

This thesis is a part of the current discussions of open source versus proprietary software for Swedish authorities. A new governmental policy has been established for which the purpose is to spread the use of open source software and thereby save governmental funds and to increase quality. A case study has been conducted about an enterprise content management solution for the authority the Swedish Armed Forces. Enterprise content management is not a new product category but an integrated approach to handle all types of content. The solution is required in order for the authority to conform to current Swedish laws. Two candidate systems are compared against the requirements for the solution, were one is open source and the other is proprietary. The first research question addresses the argument of open source software lacking features. The result implies that open source software provides an equivalent set of features. The second, third and fourth research questions address implications for Swedish authorities of choosing an open source or a propriety system. The organizational implications are of democratic interest. Open source increases the organizational transparency by making source code public, which allows automated decisions to be examined. All citizens of Sweden are by law granted access to records that are not classified. Why should this not apply to the source code used by Swedish authorities as well? Another possible organizational implication could originate from an unexpected multi-national scenario. It could become disastrous if Swedish authorities are dependent on abroad organizations which could not provide critical support. Skills and know-how should be supplied within the country. The economic implications are profound. The Swedish authorities are currently purchasing solutions based on proprietary software from private companies. When the projects are finished, the companies are able to sell the same solutions again to other authorities for the same amount of money. Governmental funds could be much better spent if the authorities choose an open source solution and share the source code and experiences with each other

Validating the Harmonic Balance Method for Turbomachinery Tonal Noise Predictions

A computational method for predicting turbomachinery tonal noise is presented. It is based on the Harmonic Balance method, which solves for the dominant frequencies of the flow generated by bladerow interaction. Coupling between the resolved frequencies is furthermore enabled since the Harmonic Balance method is applicable to the nonlinear Euler or Navier-Stokes equations. The implementation is also validated against two cases from the Fourth Computational Aeroacoustics Workshop on Benchmark Problems hosted by NASA. The computational setup is explained in detail and specific challenges encountered in both benchmark problems are discussed. Results generally show very good agreement with data published by several other authors, giving confidence in the capability of the method. Some remaining challenges for the implemented method necessary to compute full scale turbomachinery noise are also identified and discussed

Supersonic Jet Excitation using Flapping Injection

Supersonic jet noise reduction is important for high speed military aircraft. Lower acoustic levels would reduce structural fatigue leading to longer lifetime of the jet aircraft. It is not solely structural aspects which are of importance, health issues of the pilot and the airfield per- sonnel are also very important, as high acoustic levels may result in severe hearing damage. It remains a major challenge to reduce the overall noise levels of the aircraft, where the supersonic exhaust is the main noise source for near ground operation. Fluidic injection into the supersonic jet at the nozzle exhaust has been shown as a promising method for noise reduction. It has been shown to speed up the mix- ing process of the main jet, hence reducing the kinetic energy level of the jet and the power of the total acoustic radiation. Furthermore, the interaction mechanism between the fluidic injection and the shock structure in the jet exhaust plays a crucial role in the total noise radia- tion. In this study, LES is used to investigate the change in flow struc- tures of a supersonic (M=1.56) jet from a converging-diverging nozzle. Six fluidic actuators, evenly distributed around the nozzle exit, inject air in a radial direction towards the main flow axis with a total mass flow ratio of 3%. Steady injection is compared with flapping injection. With flapping injection turned on, the injection angle of each injector is varied sinusoidally in the nozzle exit plane and the variation is the same for all injectors. This fluid dynamics video is submitted to the APS DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion 2013 at the 66 the Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics (24-26 November, Pittsburgh, PA, USA).Comment: 3 pages, 2 linked animations/video