The purpose of this book is to place computer simulation studies within the paradigm of intervention research that is concerned with comparing the outcomes of health care delivered under different policies. This book presents computer simulation as a tool for testing various policy alternatives that have been developed by decision-makers within health care systems. This approach differs from the use of computer simulation in operations research, where simulation helps determine the configurations of a system that will allow it to function optimally. Although simulation of health care processes is not new, few health care systems have used simulations as a basis for re-engineering the delivery of health services. There is growing appreciation that the complexity of health care processes exceeds the capacity of individual disciplines-health services research, health economics, or operations research-to guide health care reform. In this book, the authors focus on bringing the methodological rigor of evaluative research to the design and analysis of such simulation studies.The book is intended as a reference for health services researchers. It offers a comprehensive description of the methodology of conducting simulation studies in evaluation of service alternatives in surgical care using discrete-event models, including the steps for identifying the clinical and managerial activities of the perioperative process, determining the model requirements, implementing simulation models, designing simulation experiments and analyzing the experimental data, and interpreting and reporting results.The book also offers examples of specific aspects of conducting simulation experiments: how to determine the number of runs needed to estimate the effect of implementing a health care policy; how to allocate the number of runs to study groups in simulation experiments aiming to evaluate policy or management alternatives; and how to use statistical analysis to estimate, interpret, and report effect sizes."

The purpose of this book is to place computer simulation studies within the paradigm of intervention research that is concerned with comparing the outcomes of health care delivered under different policies. This book presents computer simulation as a tool for testing various policy alternatives that have been developed by decision-makers within health care systems. This approach differs from the use of computer simulation in operations research, where simulation helps determine the configurations of a system that will allow it to function optimally. Although simulation of health care processes is not new, few health care systems have used simulations as a basis for re-engineering the delivery of health services. There is growing appreciation that the complexity of health care processes exceeds the capacity of individual disciplines-health services research, health economics, or operations research-to guide health care reform. In this book, the authors focus on bringing the methodological rigor of evaluative research to the design and analysis of such simulation studies. The book is intended as a reference for health services researchers. It offers a comprehensive description of the methodology of conducting simulation studies in evaluation of service alternatives in surgical care using discrete-event models, including the steps for identifying the clinical and managerial activities of the perioperative process, determining the model requirements, implementing simulation models, designing simulation experiments and analyzing the experimental data, and interpreting and reporting results. The book also offers examples of specific aspects of conducting simulation experiments: how to determine the number of runs needed to estimate the effect of implementing a health care policy; how to allocate the number of runs to study groups in simulation experiments aiming to evaluate policy or management alternatives; and how to use statistical analysis to estimate, interpret, and report effect sizes.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, PRIMA 2020, held in hybrid mode in Valencia, Spain, in November 2022. The 31 full papers presented together with 15 short papers and 1 demo paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 100 submissions.The conference covers a wide range of ranging from foundations of agent theory and engineering aspects of agent systems, to emerging interdisciplinary areas of agent-based research.

This book constitutes thoroughly revised selected papers of the Second International Workshop on Conflict and Resolution in Decision Makrung, COREDEMA 2016, held in The Hague, The Netherlands, in August 2016. The 9 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 13 submissions. The 2nd International Workshop on Conflict Resolution in Decision Making (COREDEMA 2016) focuses on theoretical and practical computational approaches for solving and understanding conflict resolution.

Malaya has escaped into a world of exotic dancing and drugs, trying to hide from her ability to see into the future. With a series of murders amongst her she's forced to deal with her gift before she becomes the next victim.