Improving Mechanical Ventilator Clinical Decision Support Systems with A Machine Learning Classifier for Determining Ventilator Mode

Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) will play an in-creasing role in improving the quality of medical care for critically ill patients. However, due to limitations in current informatics infrastructure, CDSS do not always have com-plete information on state of supporting physiologic monitor-ing devices, which can limit the input data available to CDSS. This is especially true in the use case of mechanical ventilation (MV), where current CDSS have no knowledge of critical ventilation settings, such as ventilation mode. To enable MV CDSS to make accurate recommendations related to ventilator mode, we developed a highly performant ma-chine learning model that is able to perform per-breath clas-sification of 5 of the most widely used ventilation modes in the USA with an average F1-score of 97.52%. We also show how our approach makes methodologic improvements over previous work and that it is highly robust to missing data caused by software/sensor error

Proses Densifikasi Pelepah Sawit Menggunakan Gliserol sebagai Filler Menjadi Bahan Bakar Padat

Palm frond has been utilized only for raw source of animal feed, compost and organic fertilizer in plantation area. Oil palm fronds has calorific value of 15,184.05 kJ/kg with a density of 0.1383 g/cm3. Calorific value can be enhanced by densification. By biomass densification aims to increase density and decrease handling issue such as storage and transportation. The aims of this research is to produce solid fuel from palm fronds by densification process, to determine the characteristics of the product and to know the effect of gliserol as filler composition and pressing pressure in the processing by densification and also to know density, calorific value and proximate of product. The composition of gliserol filler used were 15%, 25% and 35%. Pressing pressure used were 50, 75 and 100 bar. The particle size used were < 850 μm. The highest density of the product is 1.07475 gr/cm3 was obtained at gliserol filler composition 35% and pressure 100 bar. The highest calorific value of the product is 16,928.12 kJ/kg was obtained at gliserol filler composition 35% filler and pressure 100 bar. The most affecting factor to caloric value and density are pressing pressure and filler composition

The effect of thermophoresis on the discharge parameters in complex plasma experiments

Thermophoresis is a tool often applied in complex plasma experiments. One of the usual stated benefits over other experimental tools is that changes induced by thermophoresis neither directly depend on, nor directly influence, the plasma parameters. From electronic data, plasma emission profiles in the sheath, and Langmuir probe data in the plasma bulk, we conclude that this assumption does not hold. An important effect on the levitation of dust particles in argon plasma is observed as well. The reason behind the changes in plasma parameters seems to be the change in neutral atom density accompanying the increased gas temperature while running at constant pressure.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure

Factores de riesgo para atelectasias en pacientes expuestos a ventilación mecánica en el Hospital de Alta complejidad Virgen de la Puerta

"La configuración inadecuada de la ventilación mecánica es un factor importante que contribuye al daño pulmonar (la llamada lesión clásico (SDRA); sin embargo, hay un debate en curso sobre la relevancia de esta información sobre los resultados de los pacientes con SARSCoV-2, las complicaciones relacionadas se ven afectadas por los parámetros de entrada y salida del ventilador, la configuración correcta de los parámetros del ventilador no solo puede mejorar la calidad de la ventilación de los pacientes sino que también puede reducir las complicaciones relacionadas; la ventilación mecánica involucra a pacientes de muchos departamentos clínicos, incluidos no solo pacientes después de una cirugía de anestesia, sino también pacientes que necesitan asistencia respiratoria, como traumatismos graves, quemaduras e infecciones; el personal médico que comprende y domina la ventilación mecánica no son sólo los anestesiólogos sino también los médicos de cuidados intensivos y los terapeutas respiratorios; además. La atelectasia pulmonar puede progresar y provocar neumonía y enfermedades respiratorias más graves y potencialmente mortales, por tanto, es importante identificar atelectasia pulmonar para que los recursos adecuados puedan estar disponibles poco después de su admisión a cuidados críticos; el riesgo de atelectasia depende de muchos factores, como la técnica quirúrgica y estado general del paciente (obesidad, comorbilidades), la forma de administración y la modalidad es también de importancia. Se determinarán los factores de riesgo para atelectasias en ventilación mecánica en el Hospital de Alta Complejidad Virgen de la Puerta, se tomará en cuenta una población de pacientes atendidos en el Hospital de Alta Complejidad Virgen de la Puerta 2018 – 2020 en un diseño retrospectivoTesis de segunda especialida

What I\u27ve Learned from Three Years of Intensive Experience with No-Till Alfalfa

Three years ago, a project was begun to better understand the \u27hands-on\u27 aspects of no-till establishment of legumes especially alfalfa into fescue sod. Although no-till drills and technology had been around for nearly two decades, farmer feedback on the success of no-till establishment was not uniformly good. The University of Kentucky initiated a program called the \u27Establishment Initiative\u27 in partnership with seed companies and Agco-Tye to conduct no-till establishment demonstrations of no-till establishment. These demonstrations focused on getting alfalfa and red clover established into fescue sod which had been suppressed with herbicides. The following are some of the lessons learned

Opportunities for No-Till Alfalfa in Kentucky

There is a rising interest in the use of alfalfa in pastures, especially for dairy cattle, beef stockers and as supplemental summer grazing for cows with calves. Kentucky has the land resource to support 2 million acres of alfalfa without reducing acres in cultivated crops. Acres of alfalfa seeded for pasture use would be in addition to the 350,000 acres presently used primarily for hay. However, these additional acres are rolling and erodible and therefore alfalfa should be established by no-till methods

DEFENDER AUTOMATEDMEDIA FEEDER SYSTEM

Team Defender was tasked under the sponsorship of Neptune Benson to design a device capable of automating the transfer of their filtration media of choice, perlite, from the packaging into their varying Defender ®Regenerative Filtration system models. The current process used for this media transfer is time consuming, inefficient, labor intensive, and leads to overexposure to the perlite media. There were a multitude of parameters that needed to be considered during the concept generation of this particular design in order to properly solve the task at hand. In addition to the aforementioned automation of the feed process and inherent compatibility with the existing Defender design, the product needed to be cost efficient, compact, mobile, and have complimentary safety features. After consultation with the project sponsor, it was determined that the principal issue that would be encountered during the design process would be flow stagnation brought on by the jagged interlocked structure of perlite media. Due to the properties of the perlite media, it was concluded that a mixer would be the most viable, and cost efficient solution as a primary option for ensuring continuous flow. In the first generation prototype, the team weighed the options for mixer designs, and led to the design of a mixer that used arms of various lengths to create a contact with the edge of the conical section of the hopper. This mixer was attached to a rotational motor that was fed through the outlet assembly and into the bottom of the container. After testing at the Neptune Benson facility, it was determined that this stir design was incomplete in its functionality, and that some sort of other contacts would have to be added to the arms in order to produce a viable design. The final design implemented a larger hopper with a steeper cone angle. The new mixer was also added to this design, which included extra rubber flanges to the ends of the stir arms for added contact points on the edge of the container. This setup was placed on a mobile rig, allowing for easy maneuverability. While the final redesign has not yet been field tested, the initial prototype design yielded extremely positive results for the team. While there were still stagnant zones along the edge of the container that created build up of perlite due to incomplete design of the stir; but the overall mass flow rate calculated during the field test was much better than initially anticipated during engineering analysis, as it was found to be 28.86 lb/min. Given on these results, this system is calculated to increase efficiency of the current process by over 500 percent. with the final redesign, a product can be produced that can appeal to consumers as a viable attachment to their Defender units

Animal Viruses, Bacteria, and Cancer: A Brief Commentary

Animal viruses and bacteria are ubiquitous in the environment. However, little is known about their mode of transmission and etiologic role in human cancers, especially among high-risk groups (e.g., farmers, veterinarians, poultry plant workers, pet owners, and infants). Many factors may affect the survival, transmissibility, and carcinogenicity of these agents, depending on the animal-host environment, hygiene practices, climate, travel, herd immunity, and cultural differences in food consumption and preparation. Seasonal variations in immune function also may increase host susceptibility at certain times of the year. The lack of objective measures, inconsistent study designs, and sources of epidemiologic bias (e.g., residual confounding, recall bias, and non-randomized patient selection) are some of the factors that complicate a clear understanding of this subject

Estimating the Total Economic Impact of Black Bear Peeling in Western Oregon Using GIS and REMI

In parts of the Pacific Northwest, black bears emerge from winter dens with depleted fat reserves and feed on mature conifers by stripping bark and consuming sugar-rich sapwood. Peeling by bears affects commercial conifers through direct loss of the tree or degraded log quality at stand harvest. Bears generally peel trees from 15-30 years old in intensively managed forests until preferred foods such as fruits and berries are available, and a single bear can peel several trees per day. Dying trees have a signature red canopy and are detected in annual aerial forest health surveys; however, trees that scar over peeling are not detected by aerial surveys. Previous studies reported results of damage summaries for northwest Oregon from flights, adjusted for bias; however, they offered no estimates of economic impact. Using landowner survey data, another study estimated an annual timber loss to bears at approximately $11.5 million across part of western Oregon. While informative, these estimates used broad assumptions to derive primary impacts and did not address secondary impacts. We used aerial health surveys, the national land cover database, and the Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) PI+ model to estimate the primary and secondary (indirect and induced) impacts of bear peeling in western Oregon. Because the accuracy and precision of aerial estimates (i.e., percentage of dead trees/polygon) was unknown, we calculated 4 scenarios of loss: 1$0.9-$89 million annually, and resulted in an annual loss of between 11 and 1,012 jobs in the state. We will explain our methodology in this study as well as current efforts to improve the accuracy and precision of damage estimates, and ultimately our understanding of the economic impacts of black bear peeling