Survey of Simulation Models of Long-Term Care Use and Expenditure

The objective of this study is to provide a technical overview of the main simulation tools that are used for the projections of future developments in long term care systems in developed countries. The main thrust of the present analysis is that aging and uncertainties with respect to future trends in disability across individuals, and in costs required to cater to future needs, are likely to raise significant challenges both for individuals and for policy makers in the not-so-distant future, and that the supply of long-term care (LTC) is unlikely to match future demand. The main concepts used in the long term care literature are illustrated, and modelling strategies employed by different investigators are reviewed. Each of the simulation models discussed in this survey is presented in detail in the Appendix together with the relevant references. Both macrosimulation models primarily based on aggregate data at country level and microsimulation models based on individual and household survey data are considered in the present study.JRC.G.3-Econometrics and applied statistic

Formal Verification of AADL Models Using UPPAAL

VII Brazilian Symposium on Computing Systems Engineering (SBESC 2017), Session 10: Development and Tools - B, .Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are known to be highly complex systems which can be applied to a variety of different environments, covering both civil and military application domains. As CPS are typically complex systems, its design process requires strong guarantees that the specified functional and non-functional properties are satisfied on the designed application. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and high-level specification languages are a valuable asset to help the design and evaluation of such complex systems. However, when looking at the existing MDE tool-support, it is observed that there is still little support for the automated integration of formal verification techniques in these tools. Given that formal verification is necessary to ensure the levels of reliability required by safety critical CPS, this paper presents an approach that aims to integrate the Model Checking technique in the CPS design process for the purpose of correctly analyzing temporal and safety characteristics. A tool named ECPS Verifier was designed to support the model checking integration into the design process, providing the generation of timed automata models from high-levels specifications in AADL. The proposed method is illustrated by means of the design of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, from where we derive the timed automata models to be analyzed in the UPPAAL tool.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ágebra geométrica de Euclides

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Ciências Físicas e Matemáticas, Curso de Matemática.Este trabalho, apresenta um estudo sobre a evolução da linguagem algébrica aplicada a problemas geométricos, além de estudar o problemas inverso, o da linguagem geométrica sendo aplicada a problemas algébricos

Early-rearing Environment and Mate Choice in Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) Aquaculture: Effects on the Immune System

Canada is the fourth largest producer of farmed salmon in the world, with Atlantic salmon being the major species cultivated. Paradoxically British Columbia (BC), which borders the Pacific Ocean, is the major producer province where Atlantic salmon was introduced in the mid-80’s. Escaped salmon may constitute a threat to natural populations of Pacific salmon as they compete for the same resources such as food and spawning territory. A potential solution to the aquaculture industry would be to further develop the aquaculture of native species in the region. The work presented here used semi-natural spawning channels to evaluate the effects of breeding strategies and early-rearing environments on the immune performance of Chinook salmon. Breeding strategy was tested analyzing artificial hatchery practices versus semi-natural propagation in spawning channels. Early-rearing environmental assessment contrasted indoor plastic hatchery tanks with outdoor gravelled-bottom spawning channels. A disease challenge involving over 1400 fish showed interaction effects between breeding strategy and rearing environment. Fish artificially mated presented a disease susceptibility influenced by the rearing environment. The contrary occurred in the offspring of self-breeding brood stock in the spawning channels, as no differences were observed in their susceptibility to the disease regardless of rearing environment. Monitoring of anti-Vibrio anguillarum antibodies during the disease challenge and a follow up of the survivors in sea net pens further confirmed the interaction between breeding strategy and rearing environment. Gene expression in pre- and post-infected artificially propagated fish showed differential gene expression when analyzed with a 695-gene cDNA microarray for Chinook salmon. Genotyping of major histocompatibility (MH) class II β1 alleles showed a tendency of a higher heterozygosity in survivors as expected, as well as a general tendency of a higher heterozygosity in semi-naturally propagated fish. The latter is likely a direct consequence of MH-linked mate choice, which was recently described in Chinook salmon (Neff et al., 2008). To further characterize the mating system of Chinook salmon in the spawning channels, brood stock were genotyped at 12 microsatellite loci. Females and males were found to mate randomly with regards to genetic pairwise relatedness, but they tended to mate with fish of similar condition as revealed by their pairwise differences in Fulton’s condition factor. This work demonstrated that genotype-by-environment interactions can modify the disease resistance of Chinook salmon. More importantly, these effects were seen after just one round of semi-natural spawning of domesticated hatchery fish, suggesting that further studies on spawning channels may highlight other hidden benefits. Therefore, breeding strategy and early-rearing environment should be considered when propagating cultured stocks. The use of more natural propagation methods such as spawning channels could improve the immune performance of Chinook salmon and help to expand the aquaculture of this native species in BC

Applications and case studies in oil refineries

The widespread adoption of wireless systems for industrial automation calls for the development of efficient tools for virtual planning of network deployments similarly as done for conventional Fieldbus and wired systems. In industrial sites the radio signal propagation is subject to blockage due to highly dense metallic structures. Network planning should therefore account for the number and the density of the 3D obstructions surrounding each link. In this paper we address the problem of wireless node deployment in wireless industrial networks, with special focus on WirelessHART IEC 62591 and ISA SP100 IEC 62734 standards. The goal is to optimize the network connectivity and develop an effective tool that can work in complex industrial sites characterized by severe obstructions. The proposed node deployment approach is validated through a case study in an oil refinery environment. It includes an ad-hoc simulation environment (RFSim tool) that implements the proposed network planning approach using 2D models of the plant, providing connectivity information based on user-defined deployment configurations. Simulation results obtained using the proposed simulation environment were validated by on-site measurements

Unveiling the germination requirements for Cereus hildmannianus (Cactaceae), a potential new crop from southern and southeastern Brazil

Cereus hildmannianus K. Schum is a columnar cactus native to South and Southeast Brazil. The cultivation of this species seems justifiable for several reasons: its fruits are spineless and edible; it is not threatened with extinction; it naturally occurs in Pampa and Atlantic Forest under non-xeric conditions that may be unsuitable for the cultivation of other tropical cacti; and the plants are pollinator-dependent and so should benefit from native pollinators. This study aimed to test seed germination of C. hildmannianus with samples collected at three different localities in southern Brazil, as a necessary step preceding any attempts of management and domestication. Seeds were exposed to temperatures of 20° C, 25° C, 30° C and room temperature. The germinability, average germination time and synchronization index were calculated. All samples showed higher germinability at 20° C and 25° C. Seeds from Caçapava do Sul and Santiago showed significant variation in the synchronization index at 25° C and 30° C, respectively. Seeds from Porto Alegre had maximum germinability, indicating greater vigor. Our results show that the seeds of C. hildmannianus germinate well and thrive within a wide range of temperatures and that cultivation of the species from seed-raised plants should not be problematic

Using a BDI Agent to Represent a Human on the Factory Floor of the ARIAC 2023 Industrial Automation Competition

Postprin

Effects of the Human Presence among Robots in the ARIAC 2023 Industrial Automation Competition

Acknowledgements The authors thank all NIST employees and interns involved in running ARIAC 2023 and, most importantly, to the teams that took part in the competition.Peer reviewe

Cyber-physical systems design: transition from functional to architectural models

Normally, the design process of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) starts with the creation of functional models that are used for simulation purposes. However, most of the time such models are not directly reused for the design of the architecture of the target CPS. As a consequence, more efforts than strictly necessary are spent during the CPS architecture design phase. This paper presents an approach called Assisted Transformation of Models (AST), which aims at transforming functional (simulation) models designed in the Simulink environment into architectural models represented in the Architecture Analysis and Design Language. Using AST, designers can perform a smooth transition between these two design phases, with an additional advantage of assuring the coupling between functional and architectural models. The use and benefits of AST are exemplified in the paper in a study devoted to for the design of a typical CPS: an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.CAPE

Demo abstract: RadiaLE: a framework for benchmarking link quality estimators

Link quality estimation is a fundamental building block for the design of several different mechanisms and protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSN). A thorough experimental evaluation of link quality estimators (LQEs) is thus mandatory. Several WSN experimental testbeds have been designed ([1–4]) but only [3] and [2] targeted link quality measurements. However, these were exploited for analyzing low-power links characteristics rather than the performance of LQEs. Despite its importance, the experimental performance evaluation of LQEs remains an open problem, mainly due to the difficulty to provide a quantitative evaluation of their accuracy. This motivated us to build a benchmarking testbed for LQE - RadiaLE, which we present here as a demo. It includes (i.) hardware components that represent the WSN under test and (ii.) a software tool for the set up and control of the experiments and also for analyzing the collected data, allowing for LQEs evaluation