292 research outputs found
When to Initiate, When to Switch, and How to Sequence HIV Therapies: A Markov Decision Process Approach
HIV and AIDS are major health care problems throughout the world,with 40 million people living with HIV by the end of 2005. Inthat year alone, 5 million people acquired HIV, and 3 millionpeople died of AIDS. For many patients, advances in therapies overthe past ten years have changed HIV from a fatal disease to achronic, yet manageable condition. The purpose of thisdissertation is to address the challenge of effectively managingHIV therapies, with a goal of maximizing a patient's totalexpected lifetime or quality-adjusted lifetime.Perhaps the most important issue in HIV care is when a patientshould initiate therapy. Benefits of delaying therapy includeavoiding the negative side effects and toxicities associated withthe drugs, delaying selective pressures that induce thedevelopment of resistant strains of the virus, and preserving alimited number of treatment options. On the other hand, the risksof delayed therapy include the possibility of irreversible damageto the immune system, development of AIDS-related complications,and death. We develop a Markov decision process (MDP) model thatexamines this question, and we solve it using clinical data.Because of the development of resistance to administered therapiesover time, an extension to the initiation question arises: whenshould a patient switch therapies? Also, inherent in both theinitiation and switching questions is the question of whichtherapy to use each time. We develop MDP models that consider theswitching and sequencing problems, and we discuss the challengesinvolved in solving these models
A metric for assessing and optimizing data-driven prognostic algorithms for predictive maintenance
Prognostic Health Management aims to predict the Remaining Useful Life (RUL)
of degrading components/systems utilizing monitoring data. These RUL
predictions form the basis for optimizing maintenance planning in a Predictive
Maintenance (PdM) paradigm. We here propose a metric for assessing data-driven
prognostic algorithms based on their impact on downstream PdM decisions. The
metric is defined in association with a decision setting and a corresponding
PdM policy. We consider two typical PdM decision settings, namely component
ordering and/or replacement planning, for which we investigate and improve PdM
policies that are commonly utilized in the literature. All policies are
evaluated via the data-driven estimation of the long-run expected maintenance
cost per unit time, relying on available monitoring data from run-to-failure
experiments. The policy evaluation enables the estimation of the proposed
metric. The latter can further serve as an objective function for optimizing
heuristic PdM policies or algorithms' hyperparameters. The effect of different
PdM policies on the metric is initially investigated through a theoretical
numerical example. Subsequently, we employ four data-driven prognostic
algorithms on a simulated turbofan engine degradation problem, and investigate
the joint effect of prognostic algorithm and PdM policy on the metric,
resulting in a decision-oriented performance assessment of these algorithms
What makes a health system good? From cost-effectiveness analysis to ethical improvement in health systems
Fair allocation of scarce healthcare resources has been much studied within philosophy and bioethics, but analysis has focused on a narrow range of cases. The Covid-19 pandemic provided significant new challenges, making powerfully visible the extent to which health systems can be fragile, and how scarcities within crucial elements of interlinked care pathways can lead to cascading failures. Health system resilience, while previously a key topic in global health, can now be seen to be a vital concern in high-income countries too. Unfortunately, mainstream philosophical approaches to the ethics of rationing and prioritisation provide little guidance for these new problems of scarcity. Indeed, the cascading failures were arguably exacerbated by earlier attempts to make health systems leaner and more efficient. This paper argues that health systems should move from simple and atomistic approaches to measuring effectiveness to approaches that are holistic both in focusing on performance at the level of the health system as a whole, and also in incorporating a wider range of ethical concerns in thinking about what makes a health system good
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On the Trade-offs between Modeling Power and Algorithmic Complexity
Mathematical modeling is a central component of operations research. Most of the academic research in our field focuses on developing algorithmic tools for solving various mathematical problems arising from our models. However, our procedure for selecting the best model to use in any particular application is ad hoc. This dissertation seeks to rigorously quantify the trade-offs between various design criteria in model construction through a series of case studies. The hope is that a better understanding of the pros and cons of different models (for the same application) can guide and improve the model selection process.
In this dissertation, we focus on two broad types of trade-offs. The first type arises naturally in mechanism or market design, a discipline that focuses on developing optimization models for complex multi-agent systems. Such systems may require satisfying multiple objectives that are potentially in conflict with one another. Hence, finding a solution that simultaneously satisfies several design requirements is challenging. The second type addresses the dynamics between model complexity and computational tractability in the context of approximation algorithms for some discrete optimization problems. The need to study this type of trade-offs is motivated by certain industry problems where the goal is to obtain the best solution within a reasonable time frame. Hence, being able to quantify and compare the degree of sub-optimality of the solution obtained under different models is helpful. Chapters 2-5 of the dissertation focus on trade-offs of the first type and Chapters 6-7 the second type
Reliability applied to maintenance
The thesis covers studies conducted during 1976-79 under a
Science Research Council contract to examine the uses of reliability
information in decision-making in maintenance in the process industries.
After a discussion of the ideal data system, four practical studies
of process plants are described involving both Pareto and distribution
analysis. In two of these studies the maintenance policy was changed
and the effect on failure modes and frequency observed. Hyper-exponentially
distributed failure intervals were found to be common and were explained
after observation of maintenance work practices and development of
theory as being due to poor workmanship and parts. The fallacy that
constant failure rate necessarily implies the optimality of maintenance
only at failure is discussed.
Two models for the optimisation of inspection intervals are
developed; both assume items give detectable warning of impending failure.
The first is based upon constant risk of failure between successive
inspections 'and Weibull base failure distribution~ Results show that
an inspection/on-condition maintenance regime can be cost effective
even when the failure rate is falling and may be better than periodiC
renewals for an increasing failure situation. The second model is first-order Markov. Transition rate matrices are developed and solved
to compare continuous monitoring with inspections/on-condition
maintenance an a cost basis. The models incorporate planning delay
in starting maintenance after impending failure is detected.
The relationships between plant output and maintenance policy
as affected by the presence of redundancy and/or storage between stages
are examined, mainly through the literature but with some original
theoretical proposals.
It is concluded that reliability techniques have many applications
in the improvement of plant maintenance policy. Techniques abound,
but few firms are willing to take the step of faith to set up, even
temporarily, the data-collection facilities required to apply them.
There are over 350 references, many of which are reviewed in the
text, divided into chapter-related sectionso
Appendices include a review of Reliability Engineering Theory,
based on the author's draft for BS 5760(2) a discussion of the 'bath-tub
curves' applicability to maintained systems and the theory connecting
hyper-exponentially distributed failures with poor maintenance
practices
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