Impact of infection preventionists on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid quality measures in Maryland nursing homes.

BackgroundHealth care-associated infections are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in US nursing homes (NHs). The objective of the research is to assess the impact of Maryland NH infection preventionists (IPs) on NH quality measures.MethodsTwo hundred thirty-four NHs were queried through mailed survey. These survey data were then linked with 2008 quality data from Nursing Home Compare and the On-line Survey Certification of Automated Records.ResultsThree of the 8 quality measures examined-influenza vaccination for both short- and long-stay residents and pressure ulcer prevention in high-risk residents-were significantly associated with the number of IPs. None of the quality measures were shown to be significant with IPs who received specialized training on infection prevention and management compared with those who did not receive specialized training.ConclusionIPs play a critical role in preventing and managing health care-associated infections in nursing homes, especially in the areas of influenza vaccination and pressure ulcer prevention among high-risk nursing home residents. Quality measures that reflect the effects of IP training may not have been elucidated yet. Further research is needed to support the IP role in order for policy to advocate for increased IP funding

Servo blower control for powered air purifying respirators

2012 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) are a form of respiratory protection that uses a motor-coupled fan to provide filtered air to a user through a positive pressure mask. Three types of PAPR devices have been developed of which breath-responsive PAPRs are the most recent. The benefits of breath-responsive PAPRs have been identified and regulatory performance requirements have been put in place for these devices, however, no devices have been certified by any regulatory agencies. This study proposes a novel conceptual design for a breath-responsive PAPR and describes a dynamic simulation of the characteristics of this new PAPR compared to a constant flow design as exercised by a simulated breathing cycle. Additionally, this study describes a prototype of the breath-responsive concept with experimental evaluation of the prototype against regulatory requirements and conceptual design targets

Platform Infrastructure for Agile Software Estimation

Symposium PresentationApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Platform Infrastructure for Agile Software Estimation

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Acquisition Research SymposiumSoftware acquisition reform is a hot topic in the DoD, but the oversight community is struggling to adapt to changes. I diagnose some issues with the current state of business in the Software Acquisition Pathway and propose a system called Overlord to increase the level of automation in software program management and oversight. My goal is to make life easier for software developers, program managers, and members of the oversight community.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Platform Infrastructure for Agile Software Estimation

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Acquisition Research SymposiumSoftware acquisition reform is a hot topic in the DoD, but the oversight community is struggling to adapt to changes. I diagnose some issues with the current state of business in the Software Acquisition Pathway and propose a system called Overlord to increase the level of automation in software program management and oversight. My goal is to make life easier for software developers, program managers, and members of the oversight community.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Audio Adversarial Examples: Targeted Attacks on Speech-to-Text

We construct targeted audio adversarial examples on automatic speech recognition. Given any audio waveform, we can produce another that is over 99.9% similar, but transcribes as any phrase we choose (recognizing up to 50 characters per second of audio). We apply our white-box iterative optimization-based attack to Mozilla's implementation DeepSpeech end-to-end, and show it has a 100% success rate. The feasibility of this attack introduce a new domain to study adversarial examples