Automatic alignment of surgical videos using kinematic data

Over the past one hundred years, the classic teaching methodology of "see one, do one, teach one" has governed the surgical education systems worldwide. With the advent of Operation Room 2.0, recording video, kinematic and many other types of data during the surgery became an easy task, thus allowing artificial intelligence systems to be deployed and used in surgical and medical practice. Recently, surgical videos has been shown to provide a structure for peer coaching enabling novice trainees to learn from experienced surgeons by replaying those videos. However, the high inter-operator variability in surgical gesture duration and execution renders learning from comparing novice to expert surgical videos a very difficult task. In this paper, we propose a novel technique to align multiple videos based on the alignment of their corresponding kinematic multivariate time series data. By leveraging the Dynamic Time Warping measure, our algorithm synchronizes a set of videos in order to show the same gesture being performed at different speed. We believe that the proposed approach is a valuable addition to the existing learning tools for surgery.Comment: Accepted at AIME 201

Bacterial contamination of inanimate surfaces and equipment in the intensive care unit

Intensive care unit (ICU)-acquired infections are a challenging health problem worldwide, especially when caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens. In ICUs, inanimate surfaces and equipment (e.g., bedrails, stethoscopes, medical charts, ultrasound machine) may be contaminated by bacteria, including MDR isolates. Cross-transmission of microorganisms from inanimate surfaces may have a significant role for ICU-acquired colonization and infections. Contamination may result from healthcare workers' hands or by direct patient shedding of bacteria which are able to survive up to several months on dry surfaces. A higher environmental contamination has been reported around infected patients than around patients who are only colonized and, in this last group, a correlation has been observed between frequency of environmental contamination and culture-positive body sites. Healthcare workers not only contaminate their hands after direct patient contact but also after touching inanimate surfaces and equipment in the patient zone (the patient and his/her immediate surroundings). Inadequate hand hygiene before and after entering a patient zone may result in cross-transmission of pathogens and patient colonization or infection. A number of equipment items and commonly used objects in ICU carry bacteria which, in most cases, show the same antibiotic susceptibility profiles of those isolated from patients. The aim of this review is to provide an updated evidence about contamination of inanimate surfaces and equipment in ICU in light of the concept of patient zone and the possible implications for bacterial pathogen cross-transmission to critically ill patients

Informational entropy : a failure tolerance and reliability surrogate for water distribution networks

Evolutionary algorithms are used widely in optimization studies on water distribution networks. The optimization algorithms use simulation models that analyse the networks under various operating conditions. The solution process typically involves cost minimization along with reliability constraints that ensure reasonably satisfactory performance under abnormal operating conditions also. Flow entropy has been employed previously as a surrogate reliability measure. While a body of work exists for a single operating condition under steady state conditions, the effectiveness of flow entropy for systems with multiple operating conditions has received very little attention. This paper describes a multi-objective genetic algorithm that maximizes the flow entropy under multiple operating conditions for any given network. The new methodology proposed is consistent with the maximum entropy formalism that requires active consideration of all the relevant information. Furthermore, an alternative but equivalent flow entropy model that emphasizes the relative uniformity of the nodal demands is described. The flow entropy of water distribution networks under multiple operating conditions is discussed with reference to the joint entropy of multiple probability spaces, which provides the theoretical foundation for the optimization methodology proposed. Besides the rationale, results are included that show that the most robust or failure-tolerant solutions are achieved by maximizing the sum of the entropies

Job Stress Risk Factors Among Power Generation and Machine Production Employees: A Case Study-2010

Background and Objective: Job stress has been adverse effects on performance, quality of work, absents, unsafe behaviors and occupational accidents and also health problems. Risk factors of job stress can be different in various workplaces. Risk factors determination is the first step of job stress management. Identifying these risk factors among workers of Power production & Machine production industries was the aim of this study. Methods: First parts of Osipow questionnaire was used for investigating of different dimensions of job stress. The questionnaire with 60 items based on a 5 point Likert scale, is evaluated in six stress-inducing work roles (1) role overload, (2) role insufficiency, (3) role ambiguity, (4) role boundary, (5) responsibility, and (6) physical environment. We add some question for assessing physical and mental signs that are related with stress. Questionnaire was completed by voluntaries after oral explanations. Results: Mean score of stress for investigated subjects at two industries was within the normal range. Employees in two industries for the investigated dimensions inclusive role overload and role responsibility has experienced moderate stress and severe stress for physical environment. Compare of mean stress score by ANOVA test in three groups of employees including operational workers, office workers and managers showed the significant statistic difference (P<0.01) for experiencing in job stress by two groups of operational and office workers. Conclusion: Workload should be set up base on personnel ability, skills and also their physical and mental limitations. Clear definition of role responsibility is very important. Workers participation in decision making and improving physical environment of workplace were suggested for job stress mitigation approaches

Survey of Safety Climate in a Petrochemical Industry in Mahshahr

Background and Aim: Safety Climate as one of the health and safety management performance evaluation indicators is discussed. The purpose of this study was to plot the safety climate of the under study Petrochemical industry and evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses. Methods: Loughborough University Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit (LSCAT) was used in this study which assesses the safety climate governs on the workplace in 17 dimensions. Nine of them deal with attitude of workers directly and three of them deal with Organizational activity and fine of them via interview, deal with issues such as management style, Cooperation and etc. 1 to 10 scale is used for scoring each dimension. Results and Discussion: Average score of the industry's safety climate was obtained 5.9. Of 17 studied dimensions, 9 dimensions were weak (score less than 6). Lowest score were related to Event & Accident and Change management dimensions. Highest score were related to Individual priorities and need for safety (8.65). Generally relationship between individual variables (ages, work experience, education) and safety climate were not significant (P>0.05). Conclusion: Generally one can conclude that individual variables such as age, education and experience have not significant effect on safety climate. It seems that top management forms the organizational climate and consequently safety climate. It reaffirms the basic principle of senior management commitment to safety and its role in preventing accidents. Thus safety climate can be used as a good method for assessing Occupational Health and Safety Management Performance

Prevalence and probabilistic health risk assessment of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2 in Iranian edible oils

The prevalence of aflatoxins (AFs) B1, B2, G1, and G2 in Iranian edible oils were assessed by immunoaffinity column cleanup and HPLC equipped with a fluorescence detector (HPLC-FLD). Ninety-seven samples including sunflower, canola, refined olive, unrefined olive, frying, and blend oils were collected from eight provinces (n = 15 samples of refined olive oil, n = 15 samples of unrefined olive oil, n = 15 samples of sunflower oil, n = 15 samples of canola oil, n = 17 samples of frying oil, and n = 20 samples of blend oil). Also, cancer risk of aflatoxins in the adults and children due to ingestion of edible oils was estimated via margin of exposure (MOE) estimation in the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) model. Considering the limit of detection (LOD) of the current study, two unrefined olive oil samples from Zanjan Province were contaminated with AFB2 in the concentrations of 0.2 and 0.4 ng/g while other samples were free from AFB1, AFB2, AFG1, and AFG2. This study revealed that about 98 of the collected samples were free from AFs and the concentrations of AFs in the polluted samples were within the standard range suggested by European Commission regulation (20 μg/kg). However, health risk assessment indicated that both adult and children in the Zanjan Province are at considerable liver cancer risk (percentile 95 of MOE &lt; 10,000 value). Therefore, national plan to address this issue and strict inspection of edible oil products by the regulatory bodies are suggested. © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature