Emergency Department Patient Satisfaction Assessment using Modified Servqual Model; a Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: The quality of medical services and attention paid to patients in medical centers have been concerning for healthcare providers. Objective: The present study was designed to identify factors affecting patient satisfaction with medical service in the emergency department (ED). Method: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in spring 2016 in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Jiroft, Iran. Patients aged more than 18 years presenting to the ED with a minimum stay of 24 hours were included. Unwillingness to take part, incomplete questionnaires, or unavailability for an interview were considered the exclusion criteria. Data were collected using a 24-item researcher-made questionnaire based on Servqual quality measuring tool with five components of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Results: The present study recruited 373 patients with the mean age of 41.7±21.8 years (minimum 18 and maximum 79 years), of whom, 67.1% were men. Mean scores indicate the level of patient satisfaction with the hospital service ranging from relatively satisfied to totally satisfied. The components ranking in improving patient satisfaction were as follows: tangibles 4.59, assurance 2.77, reliability 2.74, responsiveness 2.57, and empathy 2.33. Conclusion: Of the components assessing the patient satisfaction, tangibles were the most effective component and empathy was the least effective one

Emergency Department Patient Satisfaction Assessment using Modified Servqual Model; a Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: The quality of medical services and attention paid to patients in medical centers have been concerning for healthcare providers. Objective: The present study was designed to identify factors affecting patient satisfaction with medical service in the emergency department (ED). Method: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in spring 2016 in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Jiroft, Iran. Patients aged more than 18 years presenting to the ED with a minimum stay of 24 hours were included. Unwillingness to take part, incomplete questionnaires, or unavailability for an interview were considered the exclusion criteria. Data were collected using a 24-item researcher-made questionnaire based on Servqual quality measuring tool with five components of tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Results: The present study recruited 373 patients with the mean age of 41.7±21.8 years (minimum 18 and maximum 79 years), of whom, 67.1% were men. Mean scores indicate the level of patient satisfaction with the hospital service ranging from relatively satisfied to totally satisfied. The components ranking in improving patient satisfaction were as follows: tangibles 4.59, assurance 2.77, reliability 2.74, responsiveness 2.57, and empathy 2.33. Conclusion: Of the components assessing the patient satisfaction, tangibles were the most effective component and empathy was the least effective one

Light-weighted CNN-Attention based architecture for Hand Gesture Recognition via ElectroMyography

Advancements in Biological Signal Processing (BSP) and Machine-Learning (ML) models have paved the path for development of novel immersive Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI). In this context, there has been a surge of significant interest in Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) utilizing Surface-Electromyogram (sEMG) signals. This is due to its unique potential for decoding wearable data to interpret human intent for immersion in Mixed Reality (MR) environments. To achieve the highest possible accuracy, complicated and heavy-weighted Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are typically developed, which restricts their practical application in low-power and resource-constrained wearable systems. In this work, we propose a light-weighted hybrid architecture (HDCAM) based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and attention mechanism to effectively extract local and global representations of the input. The proposed HDCAM model with 58,441 parameters reached a new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance with 82.91% and 81.28% accuracy on window sizes of 300 ms and 200 ms for classifying 17 hand gestures. The number of parameters to train the proposed HDCAM architecture is 18.87 times less than its previous SOTA counterpart

Fuzzy controller structures investigation for future gas turbine aero-engines

The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) Flight Path 2050 focuses on ambitious and severe targets for the next generation of air travel systems (e.g., 75% reduction in CO2 emissions per passenger kilometer, a 90% reduction in NOx emissions, and 65% reduction in noise emission of flying aircraft relative to the capabilities of typical new aircraft in 2000). In order to meet these requirements, aircraft engines should work very close to their operating limits. Therefore, the importance of advanced control strategies to satisfy all engine control modes simultaneously while protecting them from malfunctions and physical damages is being more crucial these days. In the last three decades, fuzzy controllers (FCs) have been proposed as a high potential solution for performance improvement of the next generation of aircraft engines. Based on an analytic review, this paper divides the trend of FCs design into two main lines including pure FCs (PFC) and min–max FCs (MMFC). These two main architectures are then designed, implemented on hardware, and applied in a case study to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each structure. The analysis of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation results shows that the pure FC structure would be a high potential candidate for maneuverability and response time indices improvement (e.g., military applications); while min–max FC architecture has a great potential for future civil aero-engines where the fuel consumption and steady-state responses are more important. The simulation results are also compared with those of industrial min–max controllers to confirm the feasibility and reliability of the fuzzy controllers for real-world application. The results of this paper propose a general roadmap for fuzzy controllers’ structure selection for new and next generation of aircraft engines

Differential agronomic responses of bread wheat cultivars to drought stress in the west of Iran

Two similar and concurrent experiments were carried out in 2007- 2008 on dry land agriculture research sub- institute Sararood and Mahidasht agricultural research center to study the effects of drought stress on yield and yield components of wheat cultivars under field conditions. The experimental design was split plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications. Main plots consisted of four drought stress treatments which was imposed by irrigation stoppage at different growth stages, that is, at initiation of stem elongation stage (31 of the Zadoks) (I1), at booting stage (43 of the Zadoks) ( I2), at initiation of grain – filling stage (70 of the Zadoks) (I3), and full irrigation (I4). Subplots included three cultivars, that is, Chamran (C1), Marvdasht (C2), and Shahriar (C3). Compared to control treatment (I4), treatments (I1), (I2) and (I3) exhibited 85, 57 and 43% yield decreases, respectively. In response to moisture stress during different growth stages, Shahriar CV (C3) was damaged more severely than Chamran CV (C1), the latter enjoyed more yield stability under such conditions. The result of stepwise regression analysis showed that the most important yield component was number of grains per spike followed by number of spikes per unit area, then, by 1000 grain weight. Analysis of simple correlation and path analysis showed that, in overall, given direct and indirect effects of yield components on grain yields, number of grain per spike had the largest effect on grain yield.Keywords: Bread wheat, cultivar, drought stress, path analysis, grain yield, yield component

Removal of methylene blue from aqueous solutions using raw and modified rice husk

ABSTRACT, one of the most important environmental pollutants is dye containing wastewaters. Methylene blue (MB) is a cationic dye that has carcinogenic and mutagenic effects on human. This study was investigated to remove methylene blue dye from aqueous solutions by raw and modified rice husk (Raw-RH and Modified-RH). The influence of various parameters including pH, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial dye concentration was studied on the dye removal efficiencyin a batch system. The results showed that the equilibrium was obtained at the contact time of 90 min and the maximum dye removal was also occurred at pH 10 for both the Raw-RH and Modified-RH adsorbents. The experimental data were analyzed by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The findings showed that the data were best fitted with the Freundlich isotherm. The obtained data for MB adsorption onto the Raw-RH and Modified-RH were also fitted via the pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order kinetic models. The correlation coefficients values (R2 ) showed that the adsorption kinetic described well by the pseudo-second order model. The results of this study indicated that rice husk can be used as an effective and low-cost adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue from aqueous solutions

A scientometric analysis and critical review of gas turbine aero-engines control: From Whittle engine to more-electric propulsion

The gas turbine aero-engine control systems over the past eight decades have been thoroughly investigated. This review purposes are to present a comprehensive reference for aero-engine control design and development based on a systematic scientometric analysis and to categorize different methods, algorithms, and approaches taken into account to improve the performance and operability of aircraft engines from the first days to present to enable this challenging technology to be adopted by aero-engine manufacturers. Initially, the benefits of the control systems are restated in terms of improved engine efficiency, reduced carbon dioxide emissions, and improved fuel economy. This is followed by a historical coverage of the proposed concepts dating back to 1936. A comprehensive scientometric analysis is then presented to introduce the main milestones in aero-engines control. Possible control strategies and concepts are classified into four distinct phases, including Single input- single output control algorithms, MIN-MAX or Cascade control algorithms, advanced control algorithms, More-electric and electronic control algorithms and critically reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of milestones are discussed to cover all practical aspects of the review to enable the researchers to identify the current challenges in aircraft engine control systems