Search results for: Health Outcomes

Authors: Yousef Amer, Mehdi Moayyedian, Zeinab Hajiabolhasani, Lida Moayyedian

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Moulded parts contribute to more than 70% of components in products. However, common defects particularly in plastic injection moulding exist such as: warpage, shrinkage, sink marks, and weld lines. In this paper Taguchi experimental design methods are applied to reduce the warpage defect of thin plate Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) and are demonstrated in two levels; namely, orthogonal arrays of Taguchi and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Eight trials have been run in which the optimal parameters that can minimize the warpage defect in factorial experiment are obtained. The results obtained from ANOVA approach analysis with respect to those derived from MINITAB illustrate the most significant factors which may cause warpage in injection moulding process. Moreover, ANOVA approach in comparison with other approaches like S/N ratio is more accurate and with the interaction of factors it is possible to achieve higher and the better outcomes.

Keywords: Analysis of variance, ANOVA, plastic injection mould, Taguchi methods, Warpage.

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Authors: Arie Pujiwati, Kengo Nakamura, Noriaki Watanabe, Takeshi Komai

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Coal mining is well known to cause considerable environmental impacts, including trace element contamination of soil. This study aimed to assess the trace element (As, Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, Pb, Sb, and Zn) contamination of soil in the vicinity of coal mining activities, using the case study of Asam-asam River basin, South Kalimantan, Indonesia, and to assess the human health risk, incorporating total and bioavailable (water-leachable and acid-leachable) concentrations. The results show the enrichment of As and Co in soil, surpassing the background soil value. Contamination was evaluated based on the index of geo-accumulation, I_geo and the pollution index, PI. I_geo values showed that the soil was generally uncontaminated (I_geo ≤ 0), except for elevated As and Co. Mean PI for Ni and Cu indicated slight contamination. Regarding the assessment of health risks, the Hazard Index, HI showed adverse risks (HI > 1) for Ni, Co, and As. Further, Ni and As were found to pose unacceptable carcinogenic risk (risk > 1.10^-5). Farming, settlement, and plantation were found to present greater risk than coal mines. These results show that coal mining activity in the study area contaminates the soils by particular elements and may pose potential human health risk in its surrounding area. This study is important for setting appropriate countermeasure actions and improving basic coal mining management in Indonesia.

Keywords: Coal mine, risk, soil, trace elements.

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Authors: Hiroaki Hirose, Hiroshi Ikeda, Isao Takeda

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The Japanese version of the SF-36 has been employed to assess individuals’ health-related QOL (HRQOL). This study aimed to clarify the HRQOL of motorists with a spinal cord injury, in order to compare these individuals' SF-36 scores and national standard values. A total of 100 motorists with a spinal cord injury participated in this study. Participants’ HRQOL was evaluated using the Japanese version of the SF-36 (second edition). The score for each subscale was standardized based on data on the Japanese population. The average scores for NPF, NRP, NBP, NGH, NVT, NSF, NRE, and NMH were 10.9, 41.8, 45.9, 47.1, 46.1, 46.7, 46.0, and 47.4 points, respectively. Subjects showed significantly lower scores for NPF and NRP compared with national standard values, which were both ≤ 45.0 points, but relatively normal scores for the other items: NBP, NGH, NVT, NSF, NRE and NMH (> 45.0 points). The average scores for PCS, MCS and RCS were 21.9, 56.0, and 50.0 points, respectively. Subjects showed a significantly lower PCS score (≤ 20.0 points); however, the MCS score was higher (> 55.0 points) along with a relatively normal RCS score in these individuals (= 50.0 points).

Keywords: Health-related QOL (HRQOL), SF-36, motorist, spinal cord injury, Japan.

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Authors: Rossi A. Hassad

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There is widespread emphasis on reform in the teaching of introductory statistics at the college level. Underpinning this reform is a consensus among educators and practitioners that traditional curricular materials and pedagogical strategies have not been effective in promoting statistical literacy, a competency that is becoming increasingly necessary for effective decision-making and evidence-based practice. This paper explains the historical context of, and rationale for reform-oriented teaching of introductory statistics (at the college level) in the health, social and behavioral sciences (evidence-based disciplines). A firm understanding and appreciation of the basis for change in pedagogical approach is important, in order to facilitate commitment to reform, consensus building on appropriate strategies, and adoption and maintenance of best practices. In essence, reform-oriented pedagogy, in this context, is a function of the interaction among content, pedagogy, technology, and assessment. The challenge is to create an appropriate balance among these domains.

Keywords: Reform-oriented, reform, introductory statistics, health, behavioral sciences, evidence-based, psychology, teaching, learning.

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Authors: Karolina Grzeszczuk-Kuć, Jolanta Bujok, Tomasz Walski, Małgorzata Komorowska

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Haemodialysis (HD) is a procedure saving patient lives around the world, unfortunately it brings numerous complications. Oxidative stress is one of the major factors which lead to erythrocytes destruction during extracorporeal circulation. Repeated HD procedures destroy blood elements and the organism is not able to keep up with their production. 30 HD procedures on healthy sheep were performed to evaluate effects of such treatment. Oxidative stress study was performed together with an analysis of basic blood parameters and empirical assessment of dialyzer condition after the procedure. A reversible decline in absolute leukocyte count, during first 30 min of HD, was observed. Blood clots were formed in the area of the blood inlet and outlet of the dialyzer. Our results are consistent with outcomes presented throughout the literature specifically with respect to the effects observed in humans and will provide a basis to evaluate methods for blood protection during haemodialysis.

Keywords: Animal model, blood components, haemodialysis, leukocytes, oxidative stress, sheep.

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Authors: B. Parchem, M. Watanabe, D. Modrakovic, L. Mathew, A. Franklin, M. Cao, R. E. Broudy

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Objective: Executive functioning (EF) deficits underlie several mental health diagnoses including ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Community mental health clinics face extensive waitlists for services with many referrals involving EF deficits. A pilot trial of a four-week group therapy was developed using key components from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and mindfulness with an aim to improve EF skills and offer low-fee services. Method: Eight adults (M = 34.5) waiting for services at a community clinic were enrolled in a four-week group therapy at an in-house training clinic for doctoral trainees. Baseline EF, pre-/post-intervention ADHD and distress symptoms, group satisfaction, and curriculum helpfulness were assessed. Results: Downward trends in ADHD and distress symptoms pre/post-intervention were not significant. Favorable responses on group satisfaction and helpfulness suggest clinical utility. Conclusion: Preliminary pilot data from a brief group therapy to improve EF may be an efficacious, acceptable, and feasible intervention for adults waiting for services at community mental health and training clinics where there are high demands and limits to services and staffs.

Keywords: Executive functioning, cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness, adult group therapy.

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Authors: Ali Ganoun

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This paper proposes evaluation of sound parameterization methods in recognizing some spoken Arabic words, namely digits from zero to nine. Each isolated spoken word is represented by a single template based on a specific recognition feature, and the recognition is based on the Euclidean distance from those templates. The performance analysis of recognition is based on four parameterization features: the Burg Spectrum Analysis, the Walsh Spectrum Analysis, the Thomson Multitaper Spectrum Analysis and the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) features. The main aim of this paper was to compare, analyze, and discuss the outcomes of spoken Arabic digits recognition systems based on the selected recognition features. The results acqired confirm that the use of MFCC features is a very promising method in recognizing Spoken Arabic digits.

Keywords: Speech Recognition, Spectrum Analysis, Burg Spectrum, Walsh Spectrum Analysis, Thomson Multitaper Spectrum, MFCC.

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Authors: Tamara Anderson, Neela Badrie

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Consumers are demanding novel beverages that are healthier, convenient and have appealing consumer acceptance. The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of adding grape polyphenols and the influence of presenting health claims on the sensory acceptability of wines. Fresh red sorrel calyces were fermented into wines. The total soluble solids of the pectinase-treated sorrel puree were from 4°Brix to 23.8°Brix. Polyphenol in the form of grape pomace extract was added to sorrel wines (w/v) in specified levels to give 0. 25. 50 and 75 ppm. A focus group comprising of 12 panelists was use to select the level of polyphenol to be added to sorrel wines for sensory preference The sensory attributed of the wines which were evaluated were colour, clarity, aroma, flavor, mouth-feel, sweetness, astringency and overall preference. The sorrel wine which was most preferred from focus group evaluation was presented for hedonic rating. In the first stage of hedonic testing, the sorrel wine was served chilled at 7°C for 24 h prior to sensory evaluation. Each panelist was provided with a questionnaire and was asked to rate the wines on colour, aroma, flavor, mouth-feel, sweetness, astringency and overall acceptability using a 9-point hedonic scale. In the second stage of hedonic testing, the panelist were instructed to read a health abstract on the health benefits of polyphenolic compounds and again to rate sorrel wine with added 25 ppm polyphenol. Paired t-test was used for the analysis of the influence of presenting health information on polyphenols on hedonic scoring of sorrel wines. Focus groups found that the addition of polyphenol addition had no significant effect on sensory color and aroma but affected clarity and flavor. A 25 ppm wine was liked moderately in overall acceptability. The presentation of information on the health benefit of polyphenols in sorrel wines to panelists had no significant influence on the sensory acceptance of wine. More than half of panelists would drink this wine now and then. This wine had color L 19.86±0.68, chroma 2.10±0.12, hue° 16.90 ±3.10 and alcohol content of 13.0%. The sorrel wine was liked moderately in overall acceptability with the added polyphenols.

Keywords: Sorrel wines, Roselle Hibiscus sabdariffa L, novel wine, polyphenols, health benefits, physicochemical properties.

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Authors: Behnaz Mohajeran, Alireza Ghaleei

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This main purpose of the study reported here was to investigate the extent to which the form of school governance (particularly decision-making) had an impact upon the effectiveness of the school with reference to parental involvement, planning and budgeting, professional development of teachers, school facilities and resources, and student outcomes. Particular attention was given to decision-making within the governance arrangements. The study was based on four case studies of high schools in New South Wales, Australia including one government school, one independent Christian community school, one independent Catholic school, and one Catholic systemic school. The focus of the research was principals, teachers, parents, and students of four schools with varying governance structures. To gain a greater insight into the issues, the researchers collected information by questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and review of school key documents. This study found that it was not so much structure but the centrality of the school Principal and the way that the Principal perceived his/her roles in relation to others that impacted most on school governance.

Keywords: governance structure, principal role, schooleffectiveness, stakeholder involvement

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Authors: Pablo Enrique Sartor Del Giudice

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Penalty shootouts often decide the outcome of important soccer matches. Although usually referred to as ”lotteries”, there is evidence that some national teams and clubs consistently perform better than others. The outcomes are therefore not explained just by mere luck, and therefore there are ways to improve the average performance of players, naturally at the expense of some sort of effort. In this article we study the payoff of player performance improvements in terms of the performance of the team as a whole. To do so we develop an analytical model with static individual performances, as well as Monte Carlo models that take into account the known influence of partial score and round number on individual performances. We find that within a range of usual values, the team performance improves above 70% faster than individual performances do. Using these models, we also estimate that the new ABBA penalty shootout ordering under test reduces almost all the known bias in favor of the first-shooting team under the current ABAB system.

Keywords: Football, penalty shootouts, Montecarlo simulation, ABBA.

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Authors: K´evin Fernagut, Olivier Flauzac, Erick M. Gallegos R, Florent Nolot

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The adoption of modern lightweight virtualization often comes with new threats and network vulnerabilities. This paper seeks to assess this with a different approach studying the behavior of a testbed built with tools such as Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), LinuX Containers (LXC) and Docker, by performing stress tests within a platform where students experiment simultaneously with cyber-attacks, and thus observe the impact on the campus network and also find the best solution for cyber-security learning. Interesting outcomes can be found in the literature comparing these technologies. It is, however, difficult to find results of the effects on the global network where experiments are carried out. Our work shows that other physical hosts and the faculty network were impacted while performing these trials. The problems found are discussed, as well as security solutions and the adoption of new network policies.

Keywords: Containerization, containers, cyber-security, cyber-attacks, isolation, performance, security, virtualization, virtual machines.

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Authors: Serdar Öge, Pınar Erdogan

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The main objective of this research is to describe the relationship between organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior. In order to examine this relationship, a research is intended to be carried out in relevant institutions and organizations operating in the health sector in Turkey. It will be researched that whether there is a statistically significant relationship between organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior through elated scientific research methods and statistical analysis. In addition, relationships between the dimensions of organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior subscales will be questioned statistically.

Keywords: Organizational climate, organizational citizenship, organizational citizenship behavior, climate.

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Authors: Kasra Afsahi, Maryam Soheilifar

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Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is a neurological side effect of COVID-19 disease wit high rate in pandemics. Effect of COVID-19 disease on disorder is unclear. In this cohort, patients with COVID-19 disease were assessed. 60 CVA cases were assessed in a referral hospital in 2020. The major factor was mortality and the cases were those with and without death. The groups were compared for all features about mortality in the patients with COVID-19 and CVA. Totally 23 out of 60 cases (38.3%) were expired. In univariate analysis there was significant association for death by ischemic heart disease (P = 0.015), high-severity stroke (P = 0.012), high C-reactive protein (CRP) (P = 0.001), high ESR (P = 0.009), pleural effusion (P = 0.005), pericardial effusion (P = 0.027), cardiomegaly (P = 0.005), ground glass opacity (P = 0.001), and consolidation (P = 0.001). Among these factors, there was significant association only for CRP (P = 0.001) and consolidation (P = 0.003) in multivariate analysis. Mortality in the cases with COVID-19-related CVA is one-third and it has relationship to elevated CRP and finding the consolidation in the computerized tomography scan of the lungs.

Keywords: COVID-19, stroke, prognosis, C-reactive protein, CRP.

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Authors: Turki Alotaibi

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Student counseling programs can provide many benefits to students in schools all around the world. In theory, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) has committed itself to school counseling programs in educational institutions throughout the country. Student counselors face a number of burdens and obstacles that impact student counseling programs. It is also widely known that Saudi Arabia has extremely high prevalence rates for overweight and obesity, anxiety and depression, and diabetes in children. It has also been demonstrated that teachers and staff are inadequately prepared when dealing with health issues relating to diabetes in schools in Saudi Arabia. This study will clearly demonstrate how student counselors in Saudi Arabia could become 'New Educators' in Saudi schools in relation to these health issues. This would allow them to leverage their position as student counselor to improve the management of these health issues in Saudi schools, to improve the quality of care provided to school children, and to overcome burdens and obstacles that are currently negatively affecting student counseling in Saudi schools.

Keywords: Anxiety, depression, diabetes, overweight, obesity, policy recommendations, student counseling, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Jing-Gang Xie

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The research, in this case, considers the integration of the Quantum Field Theory and the General Relativity Theory. As two successful models in explaining behaviors of particles, they are incompatible since they work at different masses and scales of energy, with the evidence that regards the description of black holes and universe formation. It is so considering previous efforts in merging the two theories, including the likes of the String Theory, Quantum Gravity models, and others. In a bid to prove an actionable experiment, the paper’s approach starts with the derivations of the existing theories at present. It goes on to test the derivations by applying the same initial assumptions, coupled with several deviations. The resulting equations get similar results to those of classical Newton model, quantum mechanics, and general relativity as long as conditions are normal. However, outcomes are different when conditions are extreme, specifically with no breakdowns even for less than Schwarzschild radius, or at Planck length cases. Even so, it proves the possibilities of integrating the two theories.

Keywords: General relativity theory, particles, photons, quantum gravity model, gravitational frequency shift.

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Authors: Martin Kendra, Tomas Skrucany, Jaroslav Masek

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The noise is one of the negative elements which affects the human health. This article presents the measurement of emitted noise by road vehicle and its parts during the operation. Measurement was done in the interior of common passenger cars with a digital sound meter. The results compare the noise value in different cars with different body shape, which influences the driver’s health. Transport has considerable ecological effects; many of them are detrimental to environmental sustainability. Roads and traffic exert a variety of direct and mostly detrimental effects on nature.

Keywords: Driver, noise measurement, passenger road vehicle, road transport.

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Authors: Juan L. Castro, Maria I. NavarroVictor Lopez, Eduardo M. Eisman, Jose M. Zurita

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This paper describes the Multilingual Virtual Simulated Patient framework. It has been created to train the social skills and testing the knowledge of primary health care medical students. The framework generates conversational agents which perform in serveral languages as virtual simulated patients that help to improve the communication and diagnosis skills of the students complementing their training process.

Keywords: Medical training, conversational agents, patient modeling.

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Authors: Elya S. Pepoyan, Astghik Z. Pepoyan

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The Zung self-depression scale and Beck Anxiety Inventory were used both to study the depression and anxiety levels of Armenian Crohn’s disease patients, and to reveal the relation between emotional status and placebo effect of these patients. On the other hand, the blood cell analyses and gut bacteria investigations were used to assess the placebo effect on ESR, and haemoglobin-s and leukocyte-s levels as well as gut commensal E. coli quantities of these patients. Despite of registered high levels of depression and anxiety, the high placebo effect on psychoemotional status for investigated patients during the investigations was described. On the other hand, no positive effect of placebo on measurements of ESP and hemoglobin-s levels of Crohn’s disease patients was revealed. The importance of use of psychotherapies for optimal outcomes during treatments of Crohn’s disease is discussed.

Keywords: Crohn's disease, emotional disorders, placebo, gut microflora and blood composition.

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Authors: Kalyan Kumar Mandal, Damodar Maity

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The degradation of concrete due to various hygrochemo- mechanical actions is inevitable for the structures particularly built to store water. Therefore, it is essential to determine the material properties of dam-like structures due to ageing to predict the behavior of such structures after a certain age. The degraded material properties are calculated by introducing isotropic degradation index. The predicted material properties are used to study the behavior of aged dam at different ages. The dam is modeled by finite elements and displacement and is considered as an unknown variable. The parametric study reveals that the displacement is quite larger for comparatively lower design life of the structure because the degradation of elastic properties depends on the design life of the dam. The stresses in dam cam be unexpectedly large at any age with in the design life. The outcomes of the present study indicate the importance of the consideration ageing effect of concrete exposed to water for the safe design of dam throughout its life time.

Keywords: Hygro-chemo-mechanical, isotropic degradation, finite element method, Koyna earthquake.

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Authors: Excellence Favor, Bakari M. M. Mwinyiwiwa, Damian D. Haule, Fakih H. Omar

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Access to information is the key to the empowerment of everybody despite where they are living. This research is to be carried out in respect of the people living in developing countries, considering their plight and complex geographical, demographic, social-economic conditions surrounding the areas they live, which hinder access to information and of professionals providing services such as medical workers, which has led to high death rates and development stagnation. Research on Unified Communications and Integrated Collaborations (UCIC) system in the health sector of developing countries comes in to create a possible solution of bridging the digital canyon among the communities. The aim is to deliver services in a seamless manner to assist health workers situated anywhere to be accessed easily and access information which will help in service delivery. The proposed UCIC provides the most immersive Telepresence experience for one-to-one or many-tomany meetings. Extending to locations anywhere in the world, the transformative platform delivers Ultra-low operating costs through the use of general purpose networks and using special lenses and track systems.

Keywords: Developing countries, Unified communications and integrated collaborations.

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Authors: Valeda Dent

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This study explores reading and library factors related to secondary school student academic outcomes in rural areas in Uganda. This mixed methods study utilized quantitative data collected as part of a more extensive project to explore six student factors in relation to students’ school, library, and home environments. The Kitengesa Community Library in Uganda (www.kitengesalibrary.org) served as the site for this study. The factors explored for this study include reading frequency, library use frequency, library access, overall grade average (OGA), and presence and type of reading materials in the home. Results indicated that both reading frequency and certain types of reading materials read for recreational purposes are correlated with higher OGA. Reading frequency was positively correlated with student OGA for all students.

Keywords: Rural village libraries, secondary school students, reading, academic achievement.

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Authors: Manisha Rathi, Thierry Chaussalet

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Hospital staff and managers are under pressure and concerned for effective use and management of scarce resources. The hospital admissions require many decisions that have complex and uncertain consequences for hospital resource utilization and patient flow. It is challenging to predict risk of admissions and length of stay of a patient due to their vague nature. There is no method to capture the vague definition of admission of a patient. Also, current methods and tools used to predict patients at risk of admission fail to deal with uncertainty in unplanned admission, LOS, patients- characteristics. The main objective of this paper is to deal with uncertainty in health system variables, and handles uncertain relationship among variables. An introduction of machine learning techniques along with statistical methods like Regression methods can be a proposed solution approach to handle uncertainty in health system variables. A model that adapts fuzzy methods to handle uncertain data and uncertain relationships can be an efficient solution to capture the vague definition of admission of a patient.

Keywords: Admission, Fuzzy, Regression, Uncertainty

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Authors: Maamar Ali Saud Al Tobi, Geraint Bevan, K. P. Ramachandran, Peter Wallace, David Harrison

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Centrifugal pumps are complex machines which can experience different types of fault. Condition monitoring can be used in centrifugal pump fault detection through vibration analysis for mechanical and hydraulic forces. Vibration analysis methods have the potential to be combined with artificial intelligence systems where an automatic diagnostic method can be approached. An automatic fault diagnosis approach could be a good option to minimize human error and to provide a precise machine fault classification. This work aims to introduce an approach to centrifugal pump fault diagnosis based on artificial intelligence and genetic algorithm systems. An overview of the future works, research methodology and proposed experimental setup is presented and discussed. The expected results and outcomes based on the experimental work are illustrated.

Keywords: Centrifugal pump setup, vibration analysis, artificial intelligence, genetic algorithm.

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Authors: Jeroen S. de Bruin, Karin Schindler, Christian Schuh

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With increasingly more mobile health applications appearing due to the popularity of smartphones, the possibility arises that these data can be used to improve the medical diagnostic process, as well as the overall quality of healthcare, while at the same time lowering costs. However, as of yet there have been no reports of a successful combination of patient-generated data from smartphones with data from clinical routine. In this paper we describe how these two types of data can be combined in a secure way without modification to hospital information systems, and how they can together be used in a medical expert system for automatic nutritional classification and triage.

Keywords: Data integration, disease-related malnutrition, expert systems, mobile health.

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Authors: Tengku Mohd T. Sembok

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Documents retrieval in Information Retrieval Systems (IRS) is generally about understanding of information in the documents concern. The more the system able to understand the contents of documents the more effective will be the retrieval outcomes. But understanding of the contents is a very complex task. Conventional IRS apply algorithms that can only approximate the meaning of document contents through keywords approach using vector space model. Keywords may be unstemmed or stemmed. When keywords are stemmed and conflated in retrieving process, we are a step forwards in applying semantic technology in IRS. Word stemming is a process in morphological analysis under natural language processing, before syntactic and semantic analysis. We have developed algorithms for Malay and Arabic and incorporated stemming in our experimental systems in order to measure retrieval effectiveness. The results have shown that the retrieval effectiveness has increased when stemming is used in the systems.

Keywords: Information Retrieval, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence.

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Authors: M. Ovinis, D. Kerr, K. Bouazza-Marouf, M. Vloeberghs

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In this paper, the feasibility of using machine vision to assess task completion in a surgical intervention is investigated, with the aim of incorporating vision based inspection in robotic surgery systems. The visually rich operative field presents a good environment for the development of automated visual inspection techniques in these systems, for a more comprehensive approach when performing a surgical task. As a proof of concept, machine vision techniques were used to distinguish the two possible outcomes i.e. satisfactory or unsatisfactory, of three primary surgical tasks involved in creating a burr hole in the skull, namely incision, retraction, and drilling. Encouraging results were obtained for the three tasks under consideration, which has been demonstrated by experiments on cadaveric pig heads. These findings are suggestive for the potential use of machine vision to validate successful task completion in robotic surgery systems. Finally, the potential of using machine vision in the operating theatre, and the challenges that must be addressed, are identified and discussed.

Keywords: Machine vision, robotic surgery, visual inspection.

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Authors: Tsu-Yun Chiu, Tsung-Hsueh Lu, Tain-Junn Cheng

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Background: Traditional chronic disease management did not pay attention to effects of geographic factors on the compliance of treatment regime, which resulted in geographic inequality in outcomes of chronic disease management. This study aims to examine the geographic distribution and clustering of quality indicators of diabetes care. Method: We first extracted address, demographic information and quality of care indicators (number of visits, complications, prescription and laboratory records) of patients with diabetes for 2014 from medical information system in a medical center in Tainan City, Taiwan, and the patients’ addresses were transformed into district- and village-level data. We then compared the differences of geographic distribution and clustering of quality of care indicators between districts and villages. Despite the descriptive results, rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated for indices of care in order to compare the quality of diabetes care among different areas. Results: A total of 23,588 patients with diabetes were extracted from the hospital data system; whereas 12,716 patients’ information and medical records were included to the following analysis. More than half of the subjects in this study were male and between 60-79 years old. Furthermore, the quality of diabetes care did indeed vary by geographical levels. Thru the smaller level, we could point out clustered areas more specifically. Fuguo Village (of Yongkang District) and Zhiyi Village (of Sinhua District) were found to be “hotspots” for nephropathy and cerebrovascular disease; while Wangliau Village and Erwang Village (of Yongkang District) would be “coldspots” for lowest proportion of ≥80% compliance to blood lipids examination. On the other hand, Yuping Village (in Anping District) was the area with the lowest proportion of ≥80% compliance to all laboratory examination. Conclusion: In spite of examining the geographic distribution, calculating rate ratios and their 95% CI could also be a useful and consistent method to test the association. This information is useful for health planners, diabetes case managers and other affiliate practitioners to organize care resources to the areas most needed.

Keywords: Geocoding, chronic disease management, quality of diabetes care, rate ratio.

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Authors: Angela–M. Paleologou, Aphrodite Dellaporta

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Erroneous computer entry problems [here: 'e'errors] in hospital labs threaten the patients-–health carers- relationship, undermining the health system credibility. Are e-errors random, and do lab professionals make them accidentally, or may they be traced through meaningful determinants? Theories on internal causality of mistakes compel to seek specific causal ascriptions of hospital lab eerrors instead of accepting some inescapability. Undeniably, 'To Err is Human'. But in view of rapid global health organizational changes, e-errors are too expensive to lack in-depth considerations. Yet, that efunction might supposedly be entrenched in the health carers- job description remains under dispute – at least for Hellenic labs, where e-use falls behind generalized(able) appreciation and application. In this study: i) an empirical basis of a truly high annual cost of e-errors at about €498,000.00 per rural Hellenic hospital was established, hence interest in exploring the issue was sufficiently substantiated; ii) a sample of 270 lab-expert nurses, technicians and doctors were assessed on several personality, burnout and e-error measures, and iii) the hypothesis that the Hardiness vs Alienation personality construct disposition explains resistance vs proclivity to e-errors was tested and verified: Hardiness operates as a resilience source in the encounter of high pressures experienced in the hospital lab, whereas its 'opposite', i.e., Alienation, functions as a predictor, not only of making e-errors, but also of leading to burn-out. Implications for apt interventions are discussed.

Keywords: Hospital lab, personality hardiness/alienation, e-errors' cost, burnout.

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Authors: J. Bartnicka

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Surgical team consists of variety types of medical specialists possessing different kind of knowledge, motivations, personalities or abilities. This together with poor knowledge transfer, lack of information and communication technologies (ICT) implementations in hospitals can cause protraction of patient care processes and even jeopardize patient safety. There is presented in the article the outcomes of studies on communication and workflow in surgical team in the background of different collaboration levels in healthcare system. As a result the five determinants of improving workflow and communication within surgical team were indicated as well as knowledge-based tools and supporting information technology were proposed.

Keywords: Knowledge transfer, absorption abilities, knowledge representation, information and communication technologies, cooperation.

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Authors: K. Chinda, P. Luangpaiboon

Abstract:

This paper presents the comparative study of coded data methods for finding the benefit of concealing the natural data which is the mercantile secret. Influential parameters of the number of replicates (rep), treatment effects (τ) and standard deviation (σ) against the efficiency of each transformation method are investigated. The experimental data are generated via computer simulations under the specified condition of the process with the completely randomized design (CRD). Three ways of data transformation consist of Box-Cox, arcsine and logit methods. The difference values of F statistic between coded data and natural data (Fc-Fn) and hypothesis testing results were determined. The experimental results indicate that the Box-Cox results are significantly different from natural data in cases of smaller levels of replicates and seem to be improper when the parameter of minus lambda has been assigned. On the other hand, arcsine and logit transformations are more robust and obviously, provide more precise numerical results. In addition, the alternate ways to select the lambda in the power transformation are also offered to achieve much more appropriate outcomes.

Keywords: Experimental Designs, Box-Cox, Arcsine, Logit Transformations.

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