Disparities in Hospital Services Utilization Among Patients with Mental Health Issues: A Statewide Example Examining Insurance Status and Race Factors from 1999-2010

There exist many disconnects between the mental and general health care sectors. However, a goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is to change this by improving insurance access and the intersection of mental and general health care. As insurance status intersects with race, the present study examines how race, insurance status, and hospital mental health services utilization differ across groups within the state of New Jersey. The present study aims to determine trends in hospital mental health care utilization by insurance status and race from 1999 to 2010. The rate of self-pay for mental health disorders in the Black population was significantly higher than the rate for Whites and Asians during this period. However, though Asian mental health utilization increased the most over the 11-year period, the Asian population had the slowest growth in self-pay rates. ANOVA tests demonstrated significant differences in the rate of self-pay mental health cases between race groups (

Real-time task attributes and temporal constraints

Real-time tasks need attributes for monitoring their execution and performing recovery actions in case of failures. Temporal constraints are a class of real-time task attributes where the constraints relate the status of the task to temporal entities. Violating temporal constraints can produce consequences of unknown severity. This paper is part of our on-going research on real-time multi agent systems constraints. We discuss the importance of temporal constraints and present a task model that explicitly represents temporal constraints. We also present our preliminary results from our initial implementation in the domain of Meeting Schedules Management involving multiple users assisted by agents

Next generation smart manufacturing and service systems using big data analytics

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd This special issue explores advancements in the next generation manufacturing and service systems by examining the novel methods, practical challenges and opportunities in the use of big data analytics. The selected articles analyse a range of scenarios where big data analytics and its applications were used for improving decision making in manufacturing and services sector such as online data analytics, sourcing decisions with considerations for big data analytics, barriers in the adoption of big data analytics, maintenance planning, and multi-sensor data for fault pattern extraction. The paper summarises the discussions on the use of big data analytics in manufacturing and service sectors

Detection of Open Fractures with Vertical Seismic Profiling

In Vertical Seismic Profiling surveys tube waves are generated by compressional waves impinging on subsurface fractures or permeable zones. The problem of generation of these waves by a non-normal incident P wave for an inclined borehole intersecting a tilted parallel wall fracture is formulated theoretically. The amplitude of tube waves depends on the permeability, the length of the fracture, and on the frequency. The relative effects of these parameters are studied individually. The problem is also formulated for a thin oblate ellipsoidal (penny-shaped) fracture. The results for the two fracture models are compared and contrasted. Field data from Tyngsboro, Massachusetts are shown for open fractures in granite. From tube wave amplitudes normalized to P wave amplitudes, calculated permeabilities are on the order of one hundred millidarcys.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Full Waveform Acoustic Logging Consortiu

Detection Of Subsurface Fractures And Permeable Zones By The Analysis Of Tube Waves

In Vertical Seismic Profiling tube waves are generated by compressional waves impinging on subsurface fractures or permeable zones. The amplitude of tube waves is dependent upon the formation permeability, the length of the fracture, and on the source frequency. The generation of tube waves is formulated theoretically and the relative effects of these parameters are studied individually. Field examples are shown for open fractures in granite. From tube wave amplitudes normalized to P-wave amplitudes, calculated permeabilities are on the order of 400 millidarcys

Socio-Technical Perspective on Managing Type II Diabetes

Social attributes such as education level, family history or place of residence all place a strong role in the probability of a person developing type II diabetes later in life. The aim of this paper is to develop a knowledge system based to use social attributes to estimate the prevalence of type II diabetes in a given area in Australia to support public health policymaking. The focus of this paper is towards answering the research question How can social determinants associated with type II diabetes, be used to incrementally develop a supporting knowledge-based system (KBS)? The contribution of this paper is two folds: 1. The problem domain is analysed and a suitable KBS development framework is chosen 2. A prototype is developed and presented. Initial results with preliminary data confirm the validity of the approach

An optimization tool for production planning: A case study in a textile industry

The textile industry is an important sector of the Brazilian economy, being considered the fifth largest textile industry in the world. To support further growth and development in this sector, this document proposes a process for production analysis through the use of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and optimization through genetic algorithms. The focus is on production planning for weaving processes and optimization to help make decisions about batch sizing and production scheduling activities. In addition, the correlations between some current technological trends and their implications for the textile industry are also highlighted. Another important contribution of this study is to detail the use of the commercial software Tecnomatix Plant Simulation 13®, to simulate and optimize a production problem by applying genetic algorithms with real production data

SPIRONOLACTONE FOR NONRESOLVING CENTRAL SEROUS CHORIORETINOPATHY: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED CROSSOVER STUDY.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of spironolactone, a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist, for nonresolving central serous chorioretinopathy. METHODS: This is a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled crossover study. Sixteen eyes of 16 patients with central serous chorioretinopathy and persistent subretinal fluid (SRF) for at least 3 months were enrolled. Patients were randomized to receive either spironolactone 50 mg or placebo once a day for 30 days, followed by a washout period of 1 week and then crossed over to either placebo or spironolactone for another 30 days. The primary outcome measure was the changes from baseline in SRF thickness at the apex of the serous retinal detachment. Secondary outcomes included subfoveal choroidal thickness and the ETDRS best-corrected visual acuity. RESULTS: The mean duration of central serous chorioretinopathy before enrollment in study eyes was 10 ± 16.9 months. Crossover data analysis showed a statistically significant reduction in SRF in spironolactone treated eyes as compared with the same eyes under placebo (P = 0.04). Secondary analysis on the first period (Day 0-Day 30) showed a significant reduction in subfoveal choroidal thickness in treated eyes as compared with placebo (P = 0.02). No significant changes were observed in the best-corrected visual acuity. There were no complications related to treatment observed. CONCLUSION: In eyes with persistent SRF due to central serous chorioretinopathy, spironolactone significantly reduced both the SRF and the subfoveal choroidal thickness as compared with placebo

A survey of security issue in multi-agent systems

Multi-agent systems have attracted the attention of researchers because of agents' automatic, pro-active, and dynamic problem solving behaviors. Consequently, there has been a rapid development in agent technology which has enabled us to provide or receive useful and convenient services in a variety of areas such as banking, transportation, e-business, and healthcare. In many of these services, it is, however, necessary that security is guaranteed. Unless we guarantee the security services based on agent-based systems, these services will face significant deployment problems. In this paper, we survey existing work related to security in multi-agent systems, especially focused on access control and trust/reputation, and then present our analyses. We also present existing problems and discuss future research challenges. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V 2011