The road to developing economically feasible plans for green, comfortable and energy efficient buildings

Owing to the current challenges in energy and environmental crises, improving buildings, as one of the biggest concerns and contributors to these issues, is increasingly receiving attention from the world. Due to a variety of choices and situations for improving buildings, it is important to review the building performance optimization studies to find the proper solution. In this paper, these studies are reviewed by analyzing all the different key parameters involved in the optimization process, including the considered decision variables, objective functions, constraints, and case studies, along with the software programs and optimization algorithms employed. As the core literature, 44 investigations recently published are considered and compared. The current investigation provides sufficient information for all the experts in the building sector, such as architects and mechanical engineers. It is noticed that EnergyPlus and MATLAB have been employed more than other software for building simulation and optimization, respectively. In addition, among the nine different aspects that have been optimized in the literature, energy consumption, thermal comfort, and economic benefits are the first, second, and third most optimized, having shares of 38.6%, 22.7%, and 17%, respectively

A suggested prototype for assessing bone health

Background- Osteoporosis is becoming a health concern worldwide. Considering the fact that prevention plays an important role in reducing the burden of this silent disease and in view of the limited resources available, many countries have adopted certain programs to fight osteoporosis through shifting their attention towards at-risk individuals. The Iranian Multicenter Osteoporosis Study (IMOS) is one of these programs. The program aims to assess bone health and the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in different parts of Iran with various altitudes, latitudes and lifestyle habits in a way that the results could be generalized to the country. Method- The present article presents the protocol used in the third phase of the study. It was designed based on the experiences gathered in the previous phases to overcome the shortcomings particularly subject loss. The questionnaire applied in this study was developed based on a thorough literature review of the risk factors and secondary causes of osteoporosis and was approved by an expert panel. It should be added that while the majority of the existing studies aim to study a certain aspect of osteoporosis, the present protocol provides the information needed for policy makers and researchers to study different osteoporosis-related issues. Conclusion- The authors believe the protocol, to be implemented with small modifications, can help policymakers in different parts of the world, particularly developing countries, gather accurate information on different aspects of bone health at the national level. © 2015, Academy of Medical Sciences of I.R. Iran. All rights reserved

Future Research in Health Information Technology: A Review

INTRODUCTION: Currently, information technology is considered an important tool to improve healthcare services. To adopt the right technologies, policy makers should have adequate information about present and future advances. This study aimed to review and compare studies with a focus on the future of health information technology. METHOD: This review study was completed in 2015. The databases used were Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Ovid Medline, and PubMed. Keyword searches were used to identify papers and materials published between 2000 and 2015. Initially, 407 papers were obtained, and they were reduced to 11 papers at the final stage. The selected papers were described and compared in terms of the country of origin, objective, methodology, and time horizon. RESULTS: The papers were divided into two groups: those forecasting the future of health information technology (seven papers) and those providing health information technology foresight (four papers). The results showed that papers related to forecasting the future of health information technology were mostly a literature review, and the time horizon was up to 10 years in most of these studies. In the health information technology foresight group, most of the studies used a combination of techniques, such as scenario building and Delphi methods, and had long-term objectives. CONCLUSION: To make the most of an investment and to improve planning and successful implementation of health information technology, a strategic plan for the future needs to be set. To achieve this aim, methods such as forecasting the future of health information technology and offering health information technology foresight can be applied. The forecasting method is used when the objectives are not very large, and the foresight approach is recommended when large-scale objectives are set to be achieved. In the field of health information technology, the results of foresight studies can help to establish realistic long-term expectations of the future of health information technology

Future Research in Health Information Technology: A Review

INTRODUCTION: Currently, information technology is considered an important tool to improve healthcare services. To adopt the right technologies, policy makers should have adequate information about present and future advances. This study aimed to review and compare studies with a focus on the future of health information technology. METHOD: This review study was completed in 2015. The databases used were Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Ovid Medline, and PubMed. Keyword searches were used to identify papers and materials published between 2000 and 2015. Initially, 407 papers were obtained, and they were reduced to 11 papers at the final stage. The selected papers were described and compared in terms of the country of origin, objective, methodology, and time horizon. RESULTS: The papers were divided into two groups: those forecasting the future of health information technology (seven papers) and those providing health information technology foresight (four papers). The results showed that papers related to forecasting the future of health information technology were mostly a literature review, and the time horizon was up to 10 years in most of these studies. In the health information technology foresight group, most of the studies used a combination of techniques, such as scenario building and Delphi methods, and had long-term objectives. CONCLUSION: To make the most of an investment and to improve planning and successful implementation of health information technology, a strategic plan for the future needs to be set. To achieve this aim, methods such as forecasting the future of health information technology and offering health information technology foresight can be applied. The forecasting method is used when the objectives are not very large, and the foresight approach is recommended when large-scale objectives are set to be achieved. In the field of health information technology, the results of foresight studies can help to establish realistic long-term expectations of the future of health information technology

The surgery-first approach for orthognathic correction of maxillary deficiency—is it stable? Three-dimensional assessment of CBCT scans and digital dental models

The aim of this study was to determine the skeletal stability of Le Fort I maxillary advancement following the surgery-first approach, by three-dimensional (3D) assessment of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans and digital dental models. CBCT scans of 25 class III patients obtained 1 week preoperatively (T0) and 1 week (T1) and 6 months (T2) postoperatively were superimposed to measure surgical movements (T0–T1) and skeletal relapse (T1–T2). The distorted dentition of the CBCT scans at T1 was replaced with 3D images of the dental models to assess the postoperative occlusion. Surgical movements of the maxilla (mean ± standard deviation values) were 6.79 ± 2.30 mm advancement, 1.28 ± 1.09 mm vertically, and 0.71 ± 0.79 mm mediolaterally. Horizontal rotation (yaw) was 1.56° ± 1.21°, vertical rotation (pitch) 1.86° ± 1.88°, and tilting (roll) 1.63° ± 1.54°. At T2, the posterior relapse was 0.72 ± 0.43 mm (P = 0.001) and relapse in pitch was 1.56° ± 1.42° (P = 0.007). There was no correlation between the size of the surgical movements and the amount of relapse. A weak correlation was noted between the number of teeth in occlusal contact immediately following surgery and relapse of maxillary roll (r = − 0.434, P = 0.030). The stability of maxillary advancement with the surgery-first approach was satisfactory and was not correlated with the quality of the immediate postoperative occlusion

Alteration of optical and morphological properties of polycarbonate illuminated by visible/IR laser beams

In this paper we investigate the effects of visible to near infrared (NIR) laser illumination on the optical transmission (OT) and morphological changes (MC) of thin, curved surfaces of polycarbonate (PC) as employed by industry. The second harmonic of Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) and two diode lasers (665 and 980 nm) were used as sources. We have shown that the morphological changes and optical transmission of the PC elements are influenced by visible to infrared coherent illumination. The morphological changes of the PC surfaces are determined using atomic force microscopy (AFM), demonstrating the appreciable changes caused by the shorter wavelengths (higher energy). When analyzing the OT spectra of PC thin films, a measurable decrease in the OT of the PC surfaces which were illuminated by 532, 665 and 980 nm, in particular 532 nm, for energy densities greater than 25 J/cm^2 can be seen

Investigating the effects of laser beams (532 and 660 nm) in annihilation of pistachio mould fungus using spectrophotometry analysis

When moulds are illuminated by visible electromagnetic-EM radiations, several effects on nucleus materials and nucleotides can be detected. These effects have a significant influence on mould generation or destruction. This paper presents the effects and implications of a red diode laser beam (660 nm), a second-harmonics of a Nd:YAG laser emitting green beam (532 nm), or the combination of both, on the eradication of Pistachio mould fungus. Incident doses (ID) of both beams are kept identical throughout the experiment. The absorption spectrums of irradiated mouldy samples and the bright-greenish-yellow-fluorescence (BGYF) of fungus occurring in mould texture due to electronic excitation are investigated. We found that a combination of a green and a red laser beam with an ID of 0.5 J/cm^2 provides the optimal effects on Pistachio mould fungus eradication

Review of Person Re-identification Techniques

Person re-identification across different surveillance cameras with disjoint fields of view has become one of the most interesting and challenging subjects in the area of intelligent video surveillance. Although several methods have been developed and proposed, certain limitations and unresolved issues remain. In all of the existing re-identification approaches, feature vectors are extracted from segmented still images or video frames. Different similarity or dissimilarity measures have been applied to these vectors. Some methods have used simple constant metrics, whereas others have utilised models to obtain optimised metrics. Some have created models based on local colour or texture information, and others have built models based on the gait of people. In general, the main objective of all these approaches is to achieve a higher-accuracy rate and lowercomputational costs. This study summarises several developments in recent literature and discusses the various available methods used in person re-identification. Specifically, their advantages and disadvantages are mentioned and compared.Comment: Published 201