FREE INTERACTOR MATRIX METHOD FOR CONTROL PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF MULTI-VARIATE SYSTEMS

In this paper, an alternative method for the assessment of multi-vitiate control loop performance with consider twocircumstances. First, known time delays between each pair of inputs and outputs, and second, without relying on any a priori knowledge about the process model or timedelays. The performance of the control loop is calculated from data driven autoregressive moving average (ARMA) and prediction error model. It is clear that the limited data in scalar measure used for performance assessment results tends to steady-state as time tends to infinity, but large number of samples gives risen in scalar measures and tends to infinity as time samples tends to infinity and therefore it becomes difficult to calculate the performance index. In this paper, the later problem is solved by considering initial part of scalar measures with steady value for next-to-next time samples to calculate the control-loop performance index which would be utilized to decide healthy working of the control loop. Simulation example is included to show the performance index of multi-variate control loop

Identification of environmental risk factors associated with the development of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Multiple genetic and environmental factors are involved in the etiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), consisting of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) but data on these exposome factors are difficult to identify . Several exposome factors as smoking have been shown to be involved, as for other environmental factors, i.e. stress, results have been conflicting. METHODS: We performed a case-control study including 674 IBD patients of the 1000IBD cohort frequency-matched based on sex and age to 1,348 controls from population based Lifelines Cohort Study. Exposome data was obtained using the validated Groningen IBD Environmental Questionnaire (GIEQ), capturing exposome factors through different stages of life using 844 items, of which 454 applicable to study the role of 93 exposome factors in disease etiology. Logistic regression modeling with Bonferroni correction for multiple testing was applied to estimate the multivariable-adjusted effect of each exposome factor. RESULTS: For IBD, we identified four novel factors; stressful life-events (CD OR2.61/UC OR 2.92), high perceived stress (2.29/2.67), alcohol use (0.40/0.43), and bronchial hyperreactivity (3.04/2.36). Four novel factors were associated with only CD; prenatal smoke exposure (1.89), having a bedpartner (0.53), allergies (2.66) and cowmilk-hypersensitivity (5.87), two solely with UC; carpet flooring (0.57) and neuroticism (1.32). Nine factors were replicated. CONCLUSION: In this study we identified ten novel and replicated nine previous reported exposome factors associated with IBD. Identifying these factors is important for both understanding disease etiology and future prevention strategies to decrease the development of IBD in genetically susceptible persons

A design pattern for optimizations in data intensive applications using ABS and JAVA 8

Cloud environments have become a standard method for enterprises to offer their applications by means of web services, data management systems, or simply renting out computing resources. In our previous work, we presented how we can use a modeling language together with the new features of JAVA 8 to overcome certain drawbacks of data structures and synchronization mechanisms in parallel applications. We extend this solution into a design pattern that allows application-specific optimizations in a distributed setting. We validate this integration using our previous case study of the Prime Sieve of Eratosthenes and illustrate the performance improvements in terms of speed-up and memory consumption

Towards Type-Based Optimizations in Distributed Applications Using ABS and JAVA 8

In this paper we present an API to support modeling applications with Actors based on the paradigm of the Abstract Behavioural Specification (ABS) language. With the introduction of JAVA 8, we expose this API through a JAVA library to allow for a high-level actor-based methodology for programming distributed systems which supports the programming to interfaces discipline. We validate this solution through a case study where we obtain significant performance improvements as well as illustrating the ease with which simple high and low-level optimizations can be obtained by examining topologies and communication within an application. Using this API we show it is much easier to observe drawbacks of shared data-structures and communications methods in the design phase of a distributed application and apply the necessary corrections in order to obtain better results

Is There a Patient Profile That Characterizes a Patient With Adult Spinal Deformity as a Candidate for Minimally Invasive Surgery?

Study designRetrospective review.ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to evaluate the baseline characteristics of patients chosen to undergo traditional open versus minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for adult spinal deformity (ASD).MethodsA multicenter review of 2 databases including ASD patients treated with surgery. Inclusion criteria were age >45 years, Cobb angle minimum of 20°, and minimum 2-year follow-up. Preoperative radiographic parameters and disability outcome measures were reviewed.ResultsA total of 350 patients were identified: 173 OPEN patients and 177 MIS. OPEN patients were significantly younger than MIS patients (61.5 years vs 63.74 years, P = .013). The OPEN group had significantly more females (87% vs 76%, P = .006), but both groups had similar body mass index. Preoperative lumbar Cobb was significantly higher for the OPEN group (34.2°) than for the MIS group (26.0°, P < .001). The mean preoperative Oswestry Disability Index was significantly higher in the MIS group (44.8 in OPEN patients and 49.8 in MIS patients, P < .011). The preoperative Numerical Rating Scale value for back pain was 7.2 in the OPEN group and 6.8 in the MIS group preoperatively, P = .100.ConclusionsPatients chosen for MIS for ASD are slightly older and have smaller coronal deformities than those chosen for open techniques, but they did not have a substantially lesser degree of sagittal malalignment. MIS surgery was most frequently utilized for patients with an sagittal vertical axis under 6 cm and a baseline pelvic incidence and lumbar lordosis mismatch under 30°

A design pattern for optimizations in data intensive applications using ABS and JAVA 8

Cloud environments have become a standard method for enterprises to offer their applications by means of web services, data management systems, or simply renting out computing resources. In our previous work, we presented how we can use a modeling language together with the new features of JAVA 8 to overcome certain drawbacks of data structures and synchronization mechanisms in parallel applications. We extend this solution into a design pattern that allows application-specific optimizations in a distributed setting. We validate this integration using our previous case study of the Prime Sieve of Eratosthenes and illustrate the performance improvements in terms of speed-up and memory co

Early and Late Reoperation Rates With Various MIS Techniques for Adult Spinal Deformity Correction.

Study designA multicenter retrospective review of an adult spinal deformity database.ObjectiveWe aimed to characterize reoperation rates and etiologies of adult spinal deformity surgery with circumferential minimally invasive surgery (cMIS) and hybrid (HYB) techniques.MethodsInclusion criteria were age ≥18 years, and one of the following: coronal Cobb >20°, sagittal vertical axis >5 cm, pelvic tilt >20°, and pelvic incidence-lumbar lordosis >10°. Patients with either cMIS or HYB surgery, ≥3 spinal levels treated with 2-year minimum follow-up were included.ResultsA total of 133 patients met inclusion for this study (65 HYB and 68 cMIS). Junctional failure (13.8%) was the most common reason for reoperation in the HYB group, while fixation failure was the most common reason in the cMIS group (14.7%). There was a higher incidence of proximal junctional failure (PJF) than distal junctional failure (DJF) within HYB (12.3% vs 3.1%), but no significant differences in PJF or DJF rates when compared to cMIS. Early (<30 days) reoperations were less common (cMIS = 1.5%; HYB = 6.1%) than late (>30 days) reoperations (cMIS = 26.5%; HYB = 27.7%), but early reoperations were more common in the HYB group after propensity matching, largely due to infection rates (10.8% vs 0%, P = .04).ConclusionsAdult spinal deformity correction with cMIS and HYB techniques result in overall reoperation rates of 27.9% and 33.8%, respectively, at minimum 2-year follow-up. Junctional failures are more common after HYB approaches, while pseudarthrosis/fixation failures happen more often with cMIS techniques. Early reoperations were less common than later returns to the operating room in both groups, but cMIS demonstrated less risk of infection and early reoperation when compared with the HYB group