This dissertation is a systematic study of electric power distribution system reliability evaluation and improvement. Reliability evaluation of electric power systems has traditionally been an integral part of planning and operation. Changes in the electric utility coupled with aging electric apparatus create a need for more realistic techniques for power system reliability modeling. This work ...

Network reliability concerns reliability metrics of large classes of multicomponent systems. In general, the structure of such a system is represented by a binary function of M binary variables where M is the number of components. Let us denote by such a structure function. We adopt the usual convention where 1 represents the operational state (the device, component or system, is operational or...

One of the primary barriers to the acceptance of surgical simulators is that most simulators still require a significant amount of an instructing surgeon's time to evaluate and provide feedback to the students using them. Thus, an important area of research in this field is the development of metrics that can enable a simulator to be an essentially self-contained teaching tool, capable of ident...

In Wisconsin, level-of-care assessments are used to set Medicaid reimbursement and determine nursing home eligibility. This study examined three methods of assessing level of care: 1) the Wisconsin quality assurance project (QAP) method, based on observations of patients, patient records, and staff interviews; 2) the Wisconsin standard (STD) method, based primarily on a clinical record review; ...

[Purpose] The aim of this study was to translate and adapt the Community Balance and Mobility Scale (CB&M) into Korean (K-CB&M) and to verify the reliability and validity of scores obtained with Korean patients. [Subjects and Methods] A total of 16 subjects were recruited from St. Vincent's Hospital in South Korea. At each testing session, subjects completed the K-CB&M, Berg balance scale (BBS)...