Mission analysis tool for turboelectric powered unmanned aircraft systems

This paper proposes an analytical model that calculates various flight parameters, such as peak maximum range for pre-determined configurations based on pre-built systems by the research group. The model serves as a tool to compare different turboelectric systems with respect to flight operability and assist in determining an optimal configuration for a select mission flight. This tool performs calculations with user inputs of leg type and altitudes, and battery specifications of capacity, voltage, and discharge rate. Calculations follow basic aerodynamic principles and relations to acquire other flight characteristics such as velocity, fuel burn, and rate of climb

Grass-Root Enterprise Modeling: Issues and Potentials of Retrieving Models from Powerpoint

Part 2: Model DerivationInternational audienceEnterprise modeling (EM) is an established practice in many organizations, but the majority of stakeholders in organizations who produce content relevant for EM use drawing or presentation tools instead of formalized EM techniques. The model-like content of such drawings or presentations often is very valuable for enterprises which calls for a way of integrating it with “real” models and other structured knowledge sources in organizations. This paper investigates how the model-like content of Powerpoint presentations can be extracted and transformed to EM. The main contributions of the paper are (a) an approach for model extraction from Powerpoint, (b) identification of heterogeneities to be tackled during the extraction process and (c) a prototype implementation demonstrating the approach based on ADO.xx

Fluctuation In Visual Acuity During Soft Toric Contact Lens Wear

Purpose. To quantify changes in visual acuity (VA) with soft toric contact lenses as a result of lens movement and/or rotational instability caused by versional eye movements. Methods. A novel chart for vision assessment at near (40 cm) for soft toric contact lenses (VANT chart),consisting of a central, color-coded logMAR panel and eight peripheral letter targets set on a white background measuring 60 × 40 cm was constructed. In the developmental phase of the work, 10 subjects (20 eyes) wore 2 toric lenses in random order, and the impact of rapid and delayed eye versions in 8 directions of gaze on VANT acuity was investigated. In phase 2, 35 subjects (68 eyes) wore 4 toric lenses in random order, and a streamlined clinical protocol using the VANT chart was implemented. Standard assessments of toric lens fit and distance VA were also performed. Results. Testing in the first phase showed no difference for change in VA for rapid vs. delayed version movements, (p = 0.17) but acuity reduction was greater for diagonal compared with horizontal/vertical versions (p = 0.06). As such, testing in phase 2 proceeded using rapid, diagonal versions only. In this second phase, there were differences for low-contrast distance VA measures between lens types (p = 0.02) and for both VANT baseline acuity (p = 0.03) and postversion acuity (p = 0.04), but no differences were found between lenses for magnitude of vision loss (p = 0.91), which was about one line. No relationship was established between the magnitude of vision loss and measured rotational stability (p = 0.75). Conclusions. This work has demonstrated that conventional approaches to measuring VA do not fully replicate the "real world" experience of soft toric lens wearers. The VANT chart has shown that VA is reduced immediately after versional eye movements and suggests that more dynamic methods of assessing visual performance should be considered for soft toric contact lens wearers, especially given the apparent inability of lens stability measurements to predict visual performance. Copyright © 2011 American Academy of Optometry

Clinically Important Changes in Health-related Quality of Life for Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An Expert Consensus Panel Report

OBJECTIVE: Without clinical input on what constitutes a significant change, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures are less likely to be adopted by clinicians for use in daily practice. Although standards can be determined empirically by within-person change studies based on patient self-reports, these anchor-based methods incorporate only the patients' perspectives of important HRQoL change, and do not reflect an informed clinical evaluation. The objective of this study was to establish clinically important difference standards from the physician's perspective for use of 2 HRQoL measures among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). DESIGN: We assembled a 9-person expert panel of North American physicians familiar with the use of the Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ), a disease-specific HRQoL measure, or the generic Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36, Version 2.0) among patients with COPD. RESULTS: Using 2 rounds of the Delphi process, 1 in-person meeting, and an iterative improvement process for circulating and correcting the final report, the expert panel established small, moderate, and large clinically important change levels for the CRQ and SF-36. CONCLUSIONS: For this expert physician panel, levels for detecting clinically important differences on the CRQ were equal to or slightly higher than previous studies based on patient-reported differences. Clinically important differences on the SF-36, Version 2.0, were noticeably larger than previous estimates based on cross-sectional differences between clinically defined patient groups