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A Task-based Support Architecture for Developing Point-of-care Clinical Decision Support Systems for the Emergency Department
Objectives: The purpose of this study was to create a task-based support architecture for developing clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) that assist physicians in making decisions at the point-of-care in the emergency department (ED). The backbone of the proposed architecture was established by a task-based emergency workflow model for a patient-physician encounter.
Methods: The architecture was designed according to an agent-oriented paradigm. Specifically, we used the O-MaSE (Organization-based Multi-agent System Engineering) method that allows for iterative translation of functional requirements into architectural components (e.g., agents). The agent-oriented paradigm was extended with ontology-driven design to implement ontological models representing knowledge required by specific agents to operate.
Results: The task-based architecture allows for the creation of a CDSS that is aligned with the task-based emergency workflow model. It facilitates decoupling of executable components (agents) from embedded domain knowledge (ontological models), thus supporting their interoperability, sharing, and reuse. The generic architecture was implemented as a pilot system, MET3-AE – a CDSS to help with the management of pediatric asthma exacerbation in the ED. The system was evaluated in a hospital ED.
Conclusions: The architecture allows for the creation of a CDSS that integrates support for all tasks from the task-based emergency workflow model, and interacts with hospital information systems. Proposed architecture also allows for reusing and sharing system components and knowledge across disease-specific CDSSs
Sub-millimeter galaxies as progenitors of compact quiescent galaxies
Three billion years after the big bang (at redshift z=2), half of the most
massive galaxies were already old, quiescent systems with little to no residual
star formation and extremely compact with stellar mass densities at least an
order of magnitude larger than in low redshift ellipticals, their descendants.
Little is known about how they formed, but their evolved, dense stellar
populations suggest formation within intense, compact starbursts 1-2 Gyr
earlier (at 3<z<6). Simulations show that gas-rich major mergers can give rise
to such starbursts which produce dense remnants. Sub-millimeter selected
galaxies (SMGs) are prime examples of intense, gas-rich, starbursts. With a
new, representative spectroscopic sample of compact quiescent galaxies at z=2
and a statistically well-understood sample of SMGs, we show that z=3-6 SMGs are
consistent with being the progenitors of z=2 quiescent galaxies, matching their
formation redshifts and their distributions of sizes, stellar masses and
internal velocities. Assuming an evolutionary connection, their space densities
also match if the mean duty cycle of SMG starbursts is 42 (+40/-29) Myr
(consistent with independent estimates), which indicates that the bulk of stars
in these massive galaxies were formed in a major, early surge of
star-formation. These results suggests a coherent picture of the formation
history of the most massive galaxies in the universe, from their initial burst
of violent star-formation through their appearance as high stellar-density
galaxy cores and to their ultimate fate as giant ellipticals.Comment: ApJ (in press
Shock waves in two-dimensional granular flow: effects of rough walls and polydispersity
We have studied the two-dimensional flow of balls in a small angle funnel,
when either the side walls are rough or the balls are polydisperse. As in
earlier work on monodisperse flows in smooth funnels, we observe the formation
of kinematic shock waves/density waves. We find that for rough walls the flows
are more disordered than for smooth walls and that shock waves generally
propagate more slowly. For rough wall funnel flow, we show that the shock
velocity and frequency obey simple scaling laws. These scaling laws are
consistent with those found for smooth wall flow, but here they are cleaner
since there are fewer packing-site effects and we study a wider range of
parameters. For pipe flow (parallel side walls), rough walls support many shock
waves, while smooth walls exhibit fewer or no shock waves. For funnel flows of
balls with varying sizes, we find that flows with weak polydispersity behave
qualitatively similar to monodisperse flows. For strong polydispersity, scaling
breaks down and the shock waves consist of extended areas where the funnel is
blocked completely.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures; accepted for PR
(16) Psyche: A mesosiderite-like asteroid?
Asteroid (16) Psyche is the target of the NASA Psyche mission. It is
considered one of the few main-belt bodies that could be an exposed
proto-planetary metallic core and that would thus be related to iron
meteorites. Such an association is however challenged by both its near- and
mid-infrared spectral properties and the reported estimates of its density.
Here, we aim to refine the density of (16) Psyche to set further constraints on
its bulk composition and determine its potential meteoritic analog.
We observed (16) Psyche with ESO VLT/SPHERE/ZIMPOL as part of our large
program (ID 199.C-0074). We used the high angular resolution of these
observations to refine Psyche's three-dimensional (3D) shape model and
subsequently its density when combined with the most recent mass estimates. In
addition, we searched for potential companions around the asteroid. We derived
a bulk density of 3.99\,\,0.26\,gcm for Psyche. While such
density is incompatible at the 3-sigma level with any iron meteorites
(7.8\,gcm), it appears fully consistent with that of
stony-iron meteorites such as mesosiderites (density
4.25\,cm). In addition, we found no satellite in our images
and set an upper limit on the diameter of any non-detected satellite of
1460\,\,200}\,m at 150\,km from Psyche (0.2\%\,\,R, the
Hill radius) and 800\,\,200\,m at 2,000\,km (3\%\,\,).
Considering that the visible and near-infrared spectral properties of
mesosiderites are similar to those of Psyche, there is merit to a
long-published initial hypothesis that Psyche could be a plausible candidate
parent body for mesosiderites.Comment: 16 page
Far-infrared observations of an unbiased sample of gamma-ray burst host galaxies
et al.Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are themost energetic phenomena in theUniverse; believed to result from the collapse and subsequent explosion of massive stars. Even though it has profound consequences for our understanding of their nature and selection biases, little is known about the dust properties of the galaxies hosting GRBs. We present analysis of the far-infrared properties of an unbiased sample of 20 BeppoSAX and Swift GRB host galaxies (at an average redshift of z = 3.1) located in the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey, the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey, the Herschel Fornax Cluster Survey, the Herschel Stripe 82 Survey and the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey, totalling 880 deg2, or ~3 per cent of the sky in total. Our sample selection is serendipitous, based only on whether the Xray position of a GRB lies within a large-scale Herschel survey - therefore our sample can be considered completely unbiased. Using deep data at wavelengths of 100-500 μm, we tentatively detected 1 out of 20GRBhosts located in these fields.We constrain their dustmasses and star formation rates (SFRs), and discuss these in the context of recent measurements of submillimetre galaxies and ultraluminous infrared galaxies. The average far-infrared flux of our sample gives an upper limit on SFR of 500M⊙ yr-1 is consistent with the contribution of such luminous galaxies to the cosmic star formation density.MJM acknowledges the support of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. NB is supported by the EC FP7 SPACE project ASTRODEEP (Ref. No. 312725). EI acknowledges funding from CONICYT/FONDECYT postdoctoral project no. 3130504. LD, RJI and SJM acknowledge support from ERC Advanced Grant COSMICISM. JGN acknowledges financial support from the Spanish CSIC for a JAE-DOC fellowship, co-funded by the European Social Fund, by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, AYA2012-39475-C02-01, and Consolider-Ingenio 2010, CSD2010-00064, projects.Peer Reviewe
Grain Dynamics in a Two-dimensional Granular Flow
We have used particle tracking methods to study the dynamics of individual
balls comprising a granular flow in a small-angle two-dimensional funnel. We
statistically analyze many ball trajectories to examine the mechanisms of shock
propagation. In particular, we study the creation of, and interactions between,
shock waves. We also investigate the role of granular temperature and draw
parallels to traffic flow dynamics.Comment: 17 pages, 24 figures. To appear in Phys.Rev.E. High res./color
figures etc. on http://www.nbi.dk/CATS/Granular/GrainDyn.htm
Pseudorapidity and centrality dependence of the collective flow of charged particles in Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_NN} = 130 GeV
This paper describes the measurement of collective flow for charged particles
in Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_NN}} = 130 GeV using the PHOBOS detector at the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). An azimuthal anisotropy is observed in
the charged particle hit distribution in the PHOBOS multiplicity detector. This
anisotropy is presented over a wide range of pseudorapidity (eta) for the first
time at this energy. The size of the anisotropy (v_{2}) is thought to probe the
degree of equilibration achieved in these collisions. The result here,averaged
over momenta and particle species, is observed to reach 7% for peripheral
collisions at mid-rapidity, falling off with centrality and increasing |eta|.
Data are presented as a function of centrality for |eta|<1.0 and as a function
of eta, averaged over centrality, in the angular region -5.0<eta<5.3. These
results call into question the common assumption of longitudinal boost
invariance over a large region of rapidity in RHIC collisions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter
Energy dependence of particle multiplicities in central Au+Au collisions
We present the first measurement of the pseudorapidity density of primary
charged particles in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200GeV. For the 6% most
central collisions, we obtain dN_ch/deta|_|eta|<1 = 650 +/- 35 (syst). Compared
to collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130GeV, the highest energy studied previously, an
increase by a factor of 1.14 +/- 0.05 is found. The energy dependence of the
pseudorapidity density is discussed in comparison with data from proton-induced
collisions and theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR
Photofission of heavy nuclei at energies up to 4 GeV
Total photofission cross sections for 238U, 235U, 233U, 237Np, 232Th, and
natPb have been measured simultaneously, using tagged photons in the energy
range Egamma=0.17-3.84 GeV. This was the first experiment performed using the
Photon Tagging Facility in Hall B at Jefferson Lab. Our results show that the
photofission cross section for 238U relative to that for 237Np is about 80%,
implying the presence of important processes that compete with fission. We also
observe that the relative photofission cross sections do not depend strongly on
the incident photon energy over this entire energy range. If we assume that for
237Np the photofission probability is equal to unity, we observe a significant
shadowing effect starting below 1.5 GeV.Comment: 4 pages of RevTex, 6 postscript figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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