Different types of environmental indicators have been developed to meet the increasing need of assessment instruments of environmental impacts. As any tool developed by research, indicators must be elaborated according to a scientific approach. One of the important steps of this elaboration is the validation. The overall objective of this paper is to present a methodological framework to valida...

Abstract: In multi-objective optimization problems, the optimization target is to obtain a set of non-dominated solutions. Comparing solution sets is crucial in evaluating the performances of different optimization algorithms. The use of performance indicators is common in comparing those sets and, subsequently, optimization algorithms. A good solution set must be close to the Pareto-optimal fr...

Parameter tuning is recognized today as a crucial ingredient when tackling an optimization problem. Several meta-optimization methods have been proposed to find the best parameter set for a given optimization algorithm and (set of) problem instances. When the objective of the optimization is some scalar quality of the solution given by the target algorithm, this quality is also used as the basi...

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) is usually used to analyse the performance of classifiers in data mining. An important ROC analysis topic is ROC convex hull(ROCCH), which is the least convex majorant (LCM) of the empirical ROC curve, and covers potential optima for the given set of classifiers. Generally, ROC performance maximization could be considered to maximize the ROCCH, which also...

OBJECTIVE To generate and evaluate an indicator of the health system's performance in the area of maternal and reproductive health in Colombia. MATERIALS AND METHODS An indicator was constructed based on variables related to the coverage and utilization of healthcare services for pregnant and reproductive-age women. A factor analysis was performed using a polychoric correlation matrix and the...

OBJECTIVE To propose an asset based indicator of wealth for Brazil using variables present in the demographic census. METHODS The indicator, named IEN (Indicador Econômico Nacional/ National Wealth Score), was developed using 12 assets and the schooling of the household head, through principal component analysis. Data from the 2000 Brazilian Demographic sample was used for deriving the score ...

BACKGROUND The search for quality requires assessment tools in the various subdivisions of a health complex. In diagnostic medicine, they are scarce and in ergometry suggestions of indicators were not found. OBJECTIVE To establish indicator for quality control on ergometry based on III Guidelines of the Brazilian Cardiology Society About Ergometric Test; to verify the percentage of tests that...