A (digital) finger on the pulse

Complex Event Processing (CEP) is a computer-based technique used to track, analyse and process data in real-time (as an event happens). It establishes correlations between streams of information and matches to defined behaviour

Ultimate load behaviour of steel box girder stiffened compression flanges

Imperial Users onl

Reinterventions In Peripheral Arterial Disease: Claudication Versus Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia - A Retrospective Study And Review Of The Literature

ObjectivePatients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) present with claudication or chronic limb threatening ischemia (CLTI). CLTI patients have a more advanced stage of atherosclerosis and increased comorbidities compared to claudicants, and are at an elevated risk of major amputation and mortality after lower extremity revascularization (LER). However, the frequency of reinterventions for claudication and CLTI have not been compared. Our hypothesis is that patients with CLTI undergo more frequent reinterventions to prevent major amputation compared to patients with claudication. MethodsA single-center retrospective chart review of consecutive patients undergoing LER for PAD in 2013-2015 was performed. Patients were stratified based on indication for revascularization into claudication or CLTI. Patient characteristics, outcomes, and reinterventions were compared between the two groups. A comprehensive literature review in PubMed was also performed to summarize the findings from the literature with respect to reinterventions for patients undergoing LER for PAD. ResultsThere were 826 patients undergoing LER and 44% (N=361) had CLTI. Patients treated for CLTI were more likely to be smokers (p\u3c.001), have diabetes (p\u3c.001), chronic renal insufficiency (p\u3c.001), end stage renal disease (p\u3c.001), and cardiac disease (p\u3c.001). CLTI patients were less likely to be on optimal medical management as reflected by decreased rate of aspirin (p\u3c.001), ADP receptor/P2Y12 inhibitors (p\u3c.001), and statins (p\u3c.001) compared to patients with claudication. Patients with CLTI had significantly higher major amputation (3.7% vs .2%, P\u3c.001) and mortality (1.4% vs .2%, P=.092) at 30 days. At long-term follow up, patients with CLTI had higher rates of major amputation (15.5% vs 1.3%, P \u3c .001) and mortality (37.1% vs 18.1%, P \u3c .001) compared to patients with claudication. There was a significant difference in mean follow-up time between the two cohorts (claudication: 3.7 ± 1.5 years vs CLTI: 2.6 ± 1.8 years, P \u3c.001). There was no significant difference in the ipsilateral reintervention rate between the two groups (claudication: 39.6% vs CLTI: 42.7%, P=.37) or the mean number of ipsilateral reinterventions (claudication: 2.0± 1.6 vs CLTI: 2.0 ± 1.7). However, after adjusting for follow-up time, the mean number of reinterventions per year (frequency of reintervention) was significantly higher for CLTI patients compared to patients with claudication (1.4 ± 2.2 vs .6 ± 0.7 intervention per year, P \u3c.001). The literature review yielded 96 articles which met inclusion criteria including explicit report of reintervention rate in study cohorts composed of claudication and/or CLTI patients. Of those articles with large cohort size and similar follow-up as this study, reintervention rates ranged from 11% to 41.3% in those with claudication. In those with CLTI, the range was 11.6% to 61%. Only three articles specified reintervention frequency. Conclusion Patients undergoing LER for CLTI undergo more frequent reinterventions over time compared to patients treated for claudication. The current literature is limited to describing reintervention rates as percentage of patients undergoing any reintervention. Research on reinterventions after LER should include reporting of the frequency of reintervention adjusted for the follow up period

Matching Startup Founders to Investors: a Tool and a Study

The process of matching startup founders with venture capital investors is a necessary first step for many modern technology companies, yet there have been few attempts to study the characteristics of the two parties and their interactions. Surprisingly little has been shown quantitatively about the process, and many of the common assumptions are based on anecdotal evidence. In this thesis, we aim to learn more about the matching component of the startup fundraising process. We begin with a tool (VCWiz), created from the current set of best-practices to help inexperienced founders navigate the founder-investor matching process. The goal of this tool is to increase efficiency and equitability, while collecting data to inform further studies. We use this data, combined with public data on venture investments in the USA, to draw conclusions about the characteristics of venture financing rounds. Finally, we explore the communication data contributed to the tool by founders who are actively fundraising, and use it to learn which social attributes are most beneficial for individuals to possess when soliciting investments.Comment: MIT Master's of Engineering in Computer Science thesis. June 2018. 152 page

Support dementia: using wearable assistive technology and analysing real-time data

Within healthcare, Complex Event Processing (CEP) engines can analyse events and related data which come from various sources (wearable sensors, environment sensors etc.) in real-time and provide insights for a better healthcare. A major strength of CEP is the automated matching of patterns and triggering of immediate actions. Dementia is becoming increasingly common in the elderly population. Currently, care provided by the NHS is in the form of personal attendants such as nurses and social workers. Reducing the amount of personal care devoted to early Dementia sufferers by means of remotely monitoring their condition will reduce the pressure on NHS resources and will promote good quality independent living. The use of sensory devices to monitor the activities of daily living of early Dementia suffers, and then analyse the sensory output to identify deviations from normal behavioural patterns can indicate deterioration in the Dementia condition such as restlessness and wandering, and subsequently seek intervention from the caregivers or the health clinicians. Controlling healthcare demand through prevention or delay is essential and technologies together with data analytics will play an increasing role. The main focus of this paper is to provide a broad overview of how people with special needs such as dementia patients, will benefit from assisted technologies to overcome barriers in achieving their daily activities and to present how CEP engines for real-time analytics can support this. This work will feed into fulfilling research work which is to provide a suitable framework to accurately analyse real-time data from assistive technology and wearable devices for remote healthcare, particularly dementia

Synthesis and Characterization of Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate (KDP) Nanocomposites.

Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate (KDP) nanocrystals were synthesized in micellar solutions of block copolymers of polystyrene (PS) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) in toluene/Dimethoxyethane solvent. The synthetic procedure entailed the doping of the block copolymer solutions with phosphoric acid and the stochiometric neutralization of the aciddoped system with potassium hydroxide (KOH). The neutralization reaction was localized within the core of the micelle which in effect served as a hanoreactor or nanovessel for the reaction. Micellization of the block copolymer molecules was induced upon doping the solution with phosphoric acid which resulted in ion dipole binding of the protons to the ethylene oxide molecules in the core of the micelle. The polystyrene segments of the copolymer surround the micelle core as a corona. Dynamic and static light scattering and solution viscometry were used to elucidate the micellization process and the extent of aggregation (micelle size) in the block copolymer solutions doped with phosphoric acid. Light scattering results indicated that acid doping, at levels of 20 mole% or higher, based on the concentration of ethylene oxide residues, induced complete micellization of copolymer molecules. The acid-doped micellar solutions were neutralized with the KOH to form colloidal solutions in which K+H2P04~ ions were ostensibly bound within the PEO core of the micelle. These neutralized colloidal solutions were precursors for the nanocrystallization of KDP. Solutions were puddle cast on glass slides and dried at -50C to yield films that were subsequently annealed to promote crystallization of KDP. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively, were used to study the xn crystallization of KDP and the morphology of thin films spin coated from the micellar solutions. The objective of this thesis was to synthesize an ordered array of KDP nanocrystals within the block copolymer film. DSC scans on the annealed films in some cases showed the presence of crystalline KDP in the composite film. AFM micrographs also showed the formation of nanosized particles of KDP. However, these nanocrystals were polydisperse in sizes and were randomly distributed. The random distribution and polydispersity indicated the crystallization of KDP material was not confined within the core of micelle

Nonlinear 3D finite element simulation of CFST columns under different confined concrete material’s models

Nowadays everything expands rapidly and growth with time, including the service structures to accommodate an acceptable level of service to the community. The concrete filled steel tubes is a new technique that provides some features compared with the normal concrete columns.in this study three concrete compressive stress strain models behavior have been studied to validate the adopted experimental work and find the best model that can simulate the actual data, using nonlinear finite element analysis in Abaqus. Then, three type of concrete strength where considered (C25, C40, and C60) with three Diameter of tube thickness ratios are; 165,100, and 50 for each concrete class type. Tests results have shown that the confinement effect in high strength concrete was higher than other types of concrete types, in addition to a noticeable enhancement in the ductility behavior. The adopted model was able to capture concrete compressive behavior accurately, for all curve’s stages

Support dementia: using wearable assistive technology and analysing real-time data

Support provided to sufferers of Dementia by the National Health Service (NHS) is mainly in the form of personal attendants such as nurses and social workers. The main focus of this paper is to present how the use of assistive technologies can help early sufferers of Dementia patients to overcome barriers in achieving their daily activities and to illustrate how data analytics, such as Complex Event Processing (CEP) in real-time can allow better monitoring of these patients. This activity will contribute to research work which is to provide a suitable framework to accurately analyse real-time data from assistive technology and wearable devices for remote healthcare, particularly monitoring early sufferers of dementia in order to promote good quality independent living

A prospective observational study on drug safety monitoring and Pharmacoeconomics in patients with locally advanced unresectable NSCLC in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Lung cancer is the deadliest type of cancer for both men and women. The study was aimed at learning and comparing the toxicities of various chemotherapeutic regimens for the treatment of carcinoma lung, which will help in the implementation of counter measures to avoid development of toxicities, with a constant vigil on the patients during chemotherapeutic cycles. This study also aimed at searching into the added economic burden to the unfortunate patient, who is already suffering from a deadly disease. Study also targeted at evaluating the performance status of the patients receiving the chemotherapy.Methods: The Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) data was collected from 40 patients receiving chemotherapy for locally advanced unresectable carcinoma lung from the cancer wards of a tertiary care hospital over a period of 2 months. ADRs were graded according to WHO guidelines and their performance statuses were assessed using the Zubrod’s performance scale. Cost analysis of chemotherapeutic regimens was also carried out.Results: On comparison, alopecia and peripheral neuropathy were significantly more common with carboplatin-paclitaxel combination compared to other regimens (p value<0.005). Cost analysis reveals that the most commonly employed carboplatin-paclitaxel combination is more affordable when compared to the newer highly expensive agents but is costlier than cisplatin based chemotherapy. Also, carboplatin-paclitaxel combination offers a reasonably good performance status.Conclusions: Thus, carboplatin-paclitaxel combination is the preferred regimen for palliation in advanced NSCLC, especially in the older patients

River and wastewater effluent nutrient inputs into the Salish Sea model

The Salish Sea Model was developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in collaboration with the Washington State Department of Ecology. The model is being used to evaluate the relative effects of human nutrient inputs and climate influences on the occurrence of low dissolved oxygen (DO) levels throughout the Salish Sea, with a focus on evaluating water quality in Puget Sound. Developing an inventory of point and nonpoint source nutrient inputs entering the Salish Sea is essential to the model’s development. This presentation will present some significant updates to nutrient inputs developed for the Salish Sea Model from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and rivers. Using a combination of monitoring data and statistical methods, we now have a daily time-series of river and wastewater treatment plant effluent flow and nutrient inputs throughout the Salish Sea from 1999 through mid-2017. These nutrient loading estimates are some of most comprehensive estimates developed for the region to date, allowing us to: identify the relative contributions of nutrient loads from WWTPs and rivers, recognize spatial patterns in loads being delivered to different basins of Puget Sound, and describe the seasonal nature of these loads. We have also developed estimates of 1) reference conditions, and 2) future conditions. The reference conditions are aimed at representing, as close as is feasible, what nutrient inputs would be in the absence of local human activities within the Puget Sound region. Future conditions represent nutrient inputs in 2040 while taking into population growth and climate change. These nutrient inputs are essential in the application of the Salish Sea Model to simulate existing, reference, and future conditions in the Salish Sea and to help guide the Puget Sound Nutrient Reduction Strategy