Regulation of Electrical Distribution Companies via Efficiency Assessments and Reward-Penalty Scheme

Improving performance of electrical distribution companies, as the natural monopoly entities in electric industry, has always been one of the main concerns of the regulators. In this paper, a new incentive regulatory scheme is proposed to improve the performances of electrical distribution companies. The proposed scheme utilizes several efficiency assessments and a 3-dimentional reward-penalty scheme (3DRPS). Through efficiency assessments, economic efficiency and service quality, as two aspects of companies’ performances, are assessed and according to the results of such assessments, reasonable capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX) for each company are calculated. Then, according to the reasonable CAPEX and OPEX, allowed revenues are calculated for next regulatory period. Moreover, the 3DRPS on quality is used to encourage the companies to maintain and improve their service quality during the regulatory period. The 3DRPS gives the incentive to the companies based on changes in their quality indices. The incentives are added to companies’ allowed revenues. Finally, the proposed scheme is applied to Iranian distribution companies and the results are discussed

Improving the prescribing of palivizumab

© 2018 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (The Royal Australasian College of Physicians) Aim: Palivizumab prevents respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in children at high risk of severe disease. This paper reviews the use and effectiveness of palivizumab at two tertiary paediatric hospitals (hospitals A and B) in New South Wales, Australia. Methods: Children prescribed palivizumab during the pre-intervention period, 1 January 2013 until 31 December 2014, were compared with children under 2 years of age who were admitted to paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) with an RSV infection. Eligibility for palivizumab was determined. To improve evidence-based utilisation of palivizumab, a ‘streamlined palivizumab individual patient use’ (IPU) pro forma was introduced at hospital A during 2015, and its applicability was reviewed. Results: In the 2 years prior to implementing the streamlined IPU, 47 children received palivizumab, with 87% at hospital A. Of the children at hospital A, 32% did not meet the guidelines, and 32% did not complete the course. While 13% of children admitted to PICU for RSV infection were eligible for palivizumab, none received it prior to admission. In 2015, 16 streamlined IPUs were submitted, and 11 patients received palivizumab. Of these patients, 27% did not meet the guidelines, and 63% did not complete the course. Of the children who received palivizumab during the three RSV seasons, one developed an RSV infection, and none were admitted to PICU. Conclusions: Palivizumab is often prescribed without meeting recognised best practice guidelines, and patients eligible are frequently not prescribed palivizumab. The streamlined IPU, implemented in hospital A, excluded patients who did not meet guidelines. The pro forma needs further refinement, and complementary strategies introduced to improve compliance

Boundary constraint handling techniques for particle swarm optimization in high dimensional problem spaces

This paper investigates the use of boundary constraint handling mechanisms to prevent unwanted particle roaming behaviour in high dimensional spaces. The paper tests a range of strategies on a benchmark for large scale optimization. The empirical analysis shows that the hyperbolic strategy, which scales down a particle’s velocity as it approaches the boundary, performs statistically significantly better than the other methods considered in terms of the best objective function value achieved. The hyperbolic strategy directly addresses the velocity explosion, thereby preventing unwanted roaming.The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (Grant Number 46712).http://link.springer.combookseries/5582019-10-03hj2018Computer Scienc