Production trend identification and forecast for shop-floor business intelligence

The paper introduces a methodology to define production trend classes and also the results to serve with trend prognosis in a given manufacturing situation. The prognosis is valid for one, selected production measure (e.g. a quality dimension of one product, like diameters, angles, surface roughness, pressure, basis position, etc.) but the applied model takes into account the past values of many other, related production data collected typically on the shop-floor, too. Consequently, it is useful in batch or (customized) mass production environments. The proposed solution is applicable to realize production control inside the tolerance limits to proactively avoid the production process going outside from the given upper and lower tolerance limits. The solution was developed and validated on real data collected on the shop-floor; the paper also summarizes the validated application results of the proposed methodology. © 2016, IMEKO-International Measurement Federation Secretariat. All rights reserved

Precision Measurements of Stretching and Compression in Fluid Mixing

The mixing of an impurity into a flowing fluid is an important process in many areas of science, including geophysical processes, chemical reactors, and microfluidic devices. In some cases, for example periodic flows, the concepts of nonlinear dynamics provide a deep theoretical basis for understanding mixing. Unfortunately, the building blocks of this theory, i.e. the fixed points and invariant manifolds of the associated Poincare map, have remained inaccessible to direct experimental study, thus limiting the insight that could be obtained. Using precision measurements of tracer particle trajectories in a two-dimensional fluid flow producing chaotic mixing, we directly measure the time-dependent stretching and compression fields. These quantities, previously available only numerically, attain local maxima along lines coinciding with the stable and unstable manifolds, thus revealing the dynamical structures that control mixing. Contours or level sets of a passive impurity field are found to be aligned parallel to the lines of large compression (unstable manifolds) at each instant. This connection appears to persist as the onset of turbulence is approached.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Quality of Life and Costs in Parkinson's Disease: A Cross Sectional Study in Hungary.

BACKGROUND: Patient reported outcomes and costs of illness are useful to capture some of the multiple effects of a disease and its treatments. Our aim was to assess quality of life (QoL) and costs of Parkinson's disease (PD) in Hungary, and to analyze their associations. METHODS: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in one neurology university clinic. Clinical characteristics, PD related resource utilizations and productivity loss in the past 12 months were recorded; the Hoehn&Yahr (HY) scale, PDQ-39 and EQ-5D questionnaires were applied. Cost calculation was performed from the societal perspective. RESULTS: 110 patients (34.5% female) were involved with mean age of 63.3 (SD = 11.3) and disease duration of 8.2 (SD = 5.8) years. PDQ-39 summary score was 48.1 (SD = 13.4). The average EQ-5D score was 0.59 (SD = 0.28), and was significantly lower than the population norm in age-groups 45-74. The correlation was significant between EQ-5D and PDQ-39 (-0.47, p = 0.000), the HY scale and EQ-5D (-0.3416, p = 0.0008) and PDQ-39 (0.3419, p = 0.0006) scores. The total mean cost was euro6030.2 (SD = 6163.0)/patient/year (direct medical 35.7%, direct non-medical 29.4%, indirect cost 34.9%). A one year increase in disease duration and 0.1 decrease of the EQ-5D utility score increase the yearly costs by 8 to 10%, and 7.8%, respectively. The effect of the PDQ-39 score on total cost was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Disease severity and public health importance of PD are clearly demonstrated by the magnitude of QoL loss. PD-related costs are substantial, but are much lower in Hungary than in Western European countries. Disease duration and EQ-5D score are significant proxy of costs

Smooth-filamental transition of active tracer fields stirred by chaotic advection

The spatial distribution of interacting chemical fields is investigated in the non-diffusive limit. The evolution of fluid parcels is described by independent dynamical systems driven by chaotic advection. The distribution can be filamental or smooth depending on the relative strength of the dispersion due to chaotic advection and the stability of the chemical dynamics. We give the condition for the smooth-filamental transition and relate the H\"older exponent of the filamental structure to the Lyapunov exponents. Theoretical findings are illustrated by numerical experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

The surgical technique and the age of the horse both influence the outcome of mosaicplasty in a cadaver equine stifle model

Six pieces of grafts, 6.5 mm in diameter, 20 mm in length, were taken from each of 170 cadaver hindlimbs, using the cranial surface of the medial femoral trochlea for harvesting. The age of the horses varied between 4 months and 23 years. 30 limbs under the age of 12 years were selected for transplantation. Three of six grafts were transplanted into the medial femoral condyle using different combinations of tunnel depth and dilation. With ageing, a significant decline in transplantability was detected. In general, mosaicplasty cannot be recommended in horses above 11 years. Based on a previous clinical case (Bodo et al., 2000), a good surface alignment was indeed achieved with a combination of graft length drilling and dilation in most cases. However, the occasional entrapment of cartilage debris under the graft prevented perfect alignment in the present cadaver study in 27% of the grafts transplanted in this manner. Since the protrusion of grafts never exceeded 1.5 mm, we conclude that drilling 3–5 mm deeper than graft length with graft length deep dilation can avoid disadvantageous protrusion of the transplanted hyaline cartilage caps, achieving bone decompression at the same time

Vitality, Language Use, and Life Satisfaction : A Study of Bilingual Hungarian Adolescents Living in Romania

This study examined the relationship between objective and subjective vitality, in-group language use, and life satisfaction among two groups of bilingual Hungarians adolescents living in Romania: a low objective vitality group from Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvar, where Hungarians are the demographic minority, and a high objective vitality group from Sfantu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyorgy, where Hungarians are the demographic majority. Consistent with predictions, the high objective vitality group reported higher subjective Hungarian vitality, lower subjective Romanian vitality, more frequent use of the Hungarian language, and higher life satisfaction, compared with the low objective vitality group. The effects of objective vitality on language use were partially mediated by subjective Romanian (but not Hungarian) vitality. Conversely, the effects of objective vitality on life satisfaction were fully mediated by subjective Hungarian (but not Romanian) vitality.Peer reviewe

A magyarországi lakosság egészséggel összefüggő munkaképessége : Keresztmetszeti reprezentatív felmérés.

Health disorders may affect negatively work productivity of individuals, leading to absence from work (absenteeism) and/or decreased functioning in the workplace (presenteeism).To assess the health-related work productivity of the adult population in Hungary by the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment questionnaire (WPAI).A cross-sectional survey was performed in 2019 involving a sample (n = 2023) representative for the adult population of Hungary. Socio-demographic characteristics were recorded. Health-related productivity of the participants was assessed by the WPAI questionnaire, health status was measured by the EQ-5D-3L measurement tool and the Minimum European Health Module (MEHM).Descriptive statistics were performed, subgroups were compared by Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Spearman's rank correlation was applied to analyze the relationship between WPAI, age and EQ-5D-3L index score.Among those in a paid job (n = 1194, 59%), altogether 70 respondents (6%) were absent from work during the week before the survey, which resulted in an average 1.9 (SD = 8.5) work hours loss per week. Presenteeism occurred in 166 (14%) cases. The average absenteeism was 3.6%, presenteeism was 4.4%, and activity impairment in the total sample was 9.5%. Absenteeism did not correlate with age and did not differ significantly across socio-demographic subgroups. Presenteeism was the highest among actively working retired people, disability pensioners and part-time employees. Presenteeism correlated moderately (r = -0.379), absenteeism weakly (r = -0.113) with EQ-5D-3L index. Correlation was significant between activity impairment and age (r = 0.412) as well as the EQ-5D-3L index score (r = -0.592). All WPAI items showed significant worsening across MEHM status levels.This is the first study in Hungary to present population reference values with the WPAI. Productivity loss due to presenteeism deserves special attention from the employers as well as from decision makers in the labour, health and social sectors. Orv Hetil. 2020; 161(36): 1522-1533

Comparative efficacy and safety of biosimilar infliximab and other biological treatments in ankylosing spondylitis: systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the efficacy and safety of infliximab-biosimilar with other biological drugs for the treatment of active ankylosing spondylitis (AS). METHODS: Systematic literature review for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with adalimumab, etanercept, golimumab, infliximab and infliximab-biosimilar in AS was performed and indirect meta-analysis (Bayesian mixed treatment comparison) was carried out. The proportion of patients reaching 20 % improvement by the assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society response criteria (ASAS20) at weeks 12 and 24 was used as efficacy endpoints, and the occurrence of serious adverse events at week 24 was applied to compare the safety of the biologicals. RESULTS: Altogether, 13 RCTs, identified by the systematic literature search, were included in the analysis. Results on the ASAS20 efficacy endpoint were reported for week 12 in 12 RCTs involving 2,395 patients, and for week 24 in 5 RCTs comprising 1,337 patients. All the five biological agents proved to be significantly superior to placebo. Infliximab showed the highest odds ratio (OR) of 7.2 (95 % CI 3.68-13.19) compared to placebo, followed by infliximab-biosimilar with OR 6.25 (95 % CI 2.55-13.14), both assessed at week 24. No significant difference was found between infliximab-biosimilar and other biological treatments regarding their efficacy and safety. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study which includes a biosimilar drug in the meta-analysis of biological treatments in AS. The results have proven the similar efficacy and safety profile of infliximab-biosimilar treatment compared to other biologicals