• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• 제15권20호
• /
• pp.8993-9004
• /
• 2014

Background: The incidence rate and the treatment costs of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are high, especially in Thailand. Previous studies indicated that early detection by a surveillance program could help by down-staging. This study aimed to compare the costs and health outcomes associated with the introduction of a HCC surveillance program with no program and to estimate the budget impact if the HCC surveillance program were implemented. Materials and Methods: A cost utility analysis using a decision tree and Markov models was used to compare costs and outcomes during the lifetime period based on a societal perspective between alternative HCC surveillance strategies with no program. Costs included direct medical, direct non-medical, and indirect costs. Health outcomes were measured as life years (LYs), and quality adjusted life years (QALYs). The results were presented in terms of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) in Thai THB per QALY gained. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were applied to investigate parameter uncertainties. Budget impact analysis (BIA) was performed based on the governmental perspective. Results: Semi-annual ultrasonography (US) and semi-annual ultrasonography plus alpha-fetoprotein (US plus AFP) as the first screening for HCC surveillance would be cost-effective options at the willingness to pay (WTP) threshold of 160,000 THB per QALY gained compared with no surveillance program (ICER=118,796 and ICER=123,451 THB/QALY), respectively. The semi-annual US plus AFP yielded more net monetary benefit, but caused a substantially higher budget (237 to 502 million THB) than semi-annual US (81 to 201 million THB) during the next ten fiscal years. Conclusions: Our results suggested that a semi-annual US program should be used as the first screening for HCC surveillance and included in the benefit package of Thai health insurance schemes for both chronic hepatitis B males and females aged between 40-50 years. In addition, policy makers considered the program could be feasible, but additional evidence is needed to support the whole prevention system before the implementation of a strategic plan.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
• /
• 제10권3호
• /
• pp.167-181
• /
• 2008

There are lack of labour and increase in logistics costs due to rapid change in logistics environments and the demand for logistics. The reality is that over spending on logistics costs are getting worse due to lack of logistics standardization. An example will be excessive logistics costs caused by unsatisfactory use of logistics equipments in wholesale markets. The logistics efficiency is falling due to delays in using logistics equipments and standardization. Therefore, there needs standardization of logistics functions and unit of handling in each stage from packing, unloading, storage, transporting, logistics information and needs logistics standardization on equipments, machineries used for the above. Standard unified with standardization is called specification and if standardization is applied broadly in manufacturing or processing, inspection than each process in terms of production can be managed rationally and labour skills will improve and product quality will be evenly maintained and compatability of each part in terms of assembly will be maintained thus materials and labour could be saved thus results in increasing productivity and lowering production costs. Also, if it is applied in industry at state-level then there will be rationalization in consumption in circulation as in purchase of raw materials, sales of products, purchase of products by consumers and contribute in improving compatibility and fair transactions. This paper is aimed to help in first solving factors affecting the most in improving logistic efficiency among unit load system and logistic hollowization, standardizing logistics base, standardizing logistics information. The study conducted surveys on limited companies but hope that in the future the target companies can be divided further into types, industries and conduct more demonstrative analysis.

• International Journal of Reliability and Applications
• /
• 제3권4호
• /
• pp.165-171
• /
• 2002

An optimization of the M/M/1 queue with impatient customers is studied. The impatient customer does not enter the system if his or her virtual waiting time exceeds the threshold K ＞ 0. After assigning three costs to the system, a cost proportional to the virtual waiting time, a penalty to each impatient customer, and also a penalty to each unit of the idle period of the server, we show that there exists a threshold K which minimizes the long-run average cost per unit time.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• 제82권2호
• /
• pp.166-172
• /
• 2019

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine whether components of the ProVent model can predict the high medical costs in Korean patients requiring at least 21 days of mechanical ventilation (prolonged mechanical ventilation [PMV]). Methods: Retrospective data from 302 patients (61.6% male; median age, 63.0 years) who had received PMV in the past 5 years were analyzed. To determine the relationship between medical cost per patient and components of the ProVent model, we collected the following data on day 21 of mechanical ventilation (MV): age, blood platelet count, requirement for hemodialysis, and requirement for vasopressors. Results: The mortality rate in the intensive care unit (ICU) was 31.5%. The average medical costs per patient during ICU and total hospital (ICU and general ward) stay were 35,105 and 41,110 US dollars (USD), respectively. The following components of the ProVent model were associated with higher medical costs during ICU stay: age <50 years (average 42,731 USD vs. 33,710 USD, p=0.001), thrombocytopenia on day 21 of MV (36,237 USD vs. 34,783 USD, p=0.009), and requirement for hemodialysis on day 21 of MV (57,864 USD vs. 33,509 USD, p<0.001). As the number of these three components increased, a positive correlation was found betweeen medical costs and ICU stay based on the Pearson's correlation coefficient (${\gamma}$) (${\gamma}=0.367$, p<0.001). Conclusion: The ProVent model can be used to predict high medical costs in PMV patients during ICU stay. The highest medical costs were for patients who required hemodialysis on day 21 of MV.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• 제18권2호
• /
• pp.111-118
• /
• 2017

The increased diversity of different types of energy sources requires moving towards smart distribution networks. This paper proposes a probabilistic DG (distributed generation) units planning model to determine technology type, capacity and location of DG units while simultaneously allocating ESS (energy storage systems) based on pre-determined capacities. This problem is studied in a wind integrated power system considering loads, prices and wind power generation uncertainties. A suitable method for DG unit planning will reduce costs and improve reliability concerns. Objective function is a cost function that minimizes DG investment and operational cost, purchased energy costs from upstream networks, the defined cost to reliability index, energy losses and the investment and degradation costs of ESS. Electrical load is a time variable and the model simulates a typical radial network successfully. The proposed model was solved using the DICOPT solver under GAMS optimization software.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
• /
• 제12권1호
• /
• pp.30-35
• /
• 2013

Motivated by the emergency scheduling in a transportation network, this paper considers a transportation problem, in which, the truck times and transportation costs are assumed as uncertain variables. To meet the demand in the practical applications, two optimization objectives are considered, one is the total costs and another is the completion times. And then, a multi-objective optimization model is developed according to the situation in applications. Because there are commensurability and conflicting between the two objectives commonly, a solution does not necessarily exist that is best with respective to the two objectives. Therefore, the problem is reduced to a single objective model, which is an uncertain programming with a chance-constrain. After some analysis, its equivalent deterministic form is obtained, which is a nonlinear programming. Based on a stepwise optimization strategy, a solution method is developed to solve the problem. Finally, the computational results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our model and algorithm.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 대한전기학회 1999년도 하계학술대회 논문집 C
• /
• pp.1340-1343
• /
• 1999

This Paper Presents a new analytic load decrement method for the evaluation of avoided generation costs of independent power producers (IPPs), named as probabilistic load decrement method. Unlike conventional load decrement methods, the proposed method exactly consider the random outage characteristic of a generating unit, economic dispatch order, and the resulting loss of load probability. Therefore, we can Provide the exact generation avoided costs of an IPP by applying the developed method. In the case studies, we have shown the correctness and effectiveness of the method, and compared with conventional load decrement methods.

• 한국건축시공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국건축시공학회 2015년도 추계 학술논문 발표대회
• /
• pp.17-18
• /
• 2015

In the case of concrete recently manufactured with a concrete mixing truck, although aggregate and cement are used as the main ingredients, from a costs savings perspective, low quality aggregates are processed and used as concrete aggregate. In the case of these low quality aggregates, the unit volume and unit binder weights are increased for manufacturing, and due to this problems such as dry shrinking of the architecture and economic infeasibility have arisen. Therefore by changing the aggregate material and the unit binder weights that are currently being distributed, this research analyzes the influence on concrete.

• 산업경영시스템학회지
• /
• 제19권39호
• /
• pp.89-98
• /
• 1996

This paper is concerned with cost analysis model in free -replacement policy under the periodic maintenance policy The free-replacement policy with minimal repairable item is considered as follows; in a manufacturer's view point operating unit is periodically replaced, if a failure occurs between minimal repair and periodic maintenance time, unit is remained in a failure condition. Also unit undergoes minimal repair at failures in minimal-repair interval. Then total expected cost per unit time is calculated according to maintenance period Tin a viewpoint of consumer's. The expected costs are included repair cost and usage cost: operating, fixed, minimal repair and loss cost. Numerical example is shown in which failure time of item has beta distribution.

• 한국건설관리학회논문집
• /
• 제12권3호
• /
• pp.131-139
• /
• 2011

본 연구는 공공시설공사에서 VE의 코스트모델과 공사현장의 진도관리, 그리고 공사비 분쟁에서 공간정보의 부재로 인한 공종별 공사비 내역 정보의 한계를 인식하고, 이를 극복하기 위하여 공사비의 인식체계를 공간단위로 전환하는 개선 방안의 하나로 제안하는 건축물 세부공간단위의 공사비 원가계산방법에 관한 것이다. 본 연구를 통해 제시한 공간단위의 공사원가 산정 시스템은 공사비를 구성하는 모든 공간 단위에서, 모든 공종, 공종을 구성하는 모든 자재, 노무 및 모든 비용 항목에 대한 정밀하고도 다차원적인 파악이 가능하게 하는 것이다.