Markov Chain-based Cost-Optimal Control Charts for Healthcare Data

Control charts have traditionally been used in industrial statistics, but are constantly seeing new areas of application, especially in the age of Industry 4.0. This paper introduces a new method, which is suitable for applications in the healthcare sector, especially for monitoring a health-characteristic of a patient. We adapt a Markov chain-based approach and develop a method in which not only the shift size (i.e. the degradation of the patient's health) can be random, but the effect of the repair (i.e. treatment) and time between samplings (i.e. visits) too. This means that we do not use many often-present assumptions which are usually not applicable for medical treatments. The average cost of the protocol, which is determined by the time between samplings and the control limit, can be estimated using the stationary distribution of the Markov chain. Furthermore, we incorporate the standard deviation of the cost into the optimisation procedure, which is often very important from a process control viewpoint. The sensitivity of the optimal parameters and the resulting average cost and cost standard deviation on different parameter values is investigated. We demonstrate the usefulness of the approach for real-life data of patients treated in Hungary: namely the monitoring of cholesterol level of patients with cardiovascular event risk. The results showed that the optimal parameters from our approach can be somewhat different from the original medical parameters

P05.61. The multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness (MAIA)

This paper describes the development of a multidimensional self-report measure of interoceptive body awareness. The systematic mixed-methods process involved reviewing the current literature, specifying a multidimensional conceptual framework, evaluating prior instruments, developing items, and analyzing focus group responses to scale items by instructors and patients of body awareness-enhancing therapies. Following refinement by cognitive testing, items were field-tested in students and instructors of mind-body approaches. Final item selection was achieved by submitting the field test data to an iterative process using multiple validation methods, including exploratory cluster and confirmatory factor analyses, comparison between known groups, and correlations with established measures of related constructs. The resulting 32-item multidimensional instrument assesses eight concepts. The psychometric properties of these final scales suggest that the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) may serve as a starting point for research and further collaborative refinement

J/Psi and Psi' total cross sections and formation times from data for charmonium suppression in pApA collisions

The recent data for E866 experiment on the x_F dependence for charmonium suppression in pA collisions at 800 GeV are analyzed using a time- and energy-dependent preformed charmonium absorption cross section \sigma_{abs}^\psi(\tau,\sqrt{s}). For \sqrt{s}=10 GeV the initially (\tau=0) produced premeson has an absorption cross section of \sigma_{pr}~3mb. At the same energy but for \tau -> \infty one deduces for the total cross sections \sigma_{tot}^{J/Psi N}=(2.8\pm 0.3)mb, \sigma_{tot}^{J/Psi N}= (10.5\pm 3.6)mb. The date are compatible with a formation time \tau_{1/2}=0.6 fm/c.Comment: 13 pages of Latex including 2 figures; typos in the abstract are correcte

Abdominal pain with a twist

Malrotation in children is due to either an incomplete or non-rotation of the foetal mid-gut during perinatal development. Presentation is usually in the first few weeks of life, often with life-threatening volvulus and ischaemia. However, it can be a rare cause of abdominal pain in older children and young adults. We present such a case, as a reminder to emergency physicians that malrotation should be considered in the differential diagnosis of recurrent or chronic abdominal pain not only in children but also in adolescents

Delays in IP routers, a Markov model

Delays in routers are an important component of end-to-end delay and therefore have a significant impact on quality of service. While the other component, the propagation time, is easy to predict as the distance divided by the speed of light inside the link, the queueing delays of packets inside routers depend on the current, usually dynamically changing congestion and on the stochastic features of the flows. We use a Markov model taking into account the distribution of the size of packets and self-similarity of incoming flows to investigate their impact on the queueing delays and their dynamics

On identifiability for chemical systems from measurable variables

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10910-013-0149-4The dynamics of the composition of chemical species in reacting systems can be characterized by a set of autonomous differential equations derived from mass conservation principles and some elementary hypothesis related to chemical reactivity. These sets of ordinary differential equations are basically non-linear, their complexity grows as much increases the number of substances present in the reacting media an can be characterized by a set of phenomenological constants which contains all the relevant information about the physical system. The determination of these kinetic constants is critical for the design or control of chemical systems from a technological point of view but the non-linear nature of the equations implies that there are hidden correlations between the parameters which maybe can be revealed with a identifiability analysis.This work has been partially supported by MTM2010-18228.Cantó Colomina, B.; Coll, C.; Sánchez, E.; Cardona Navarrete, SC.; Navarro-Laboulais, J. (2014). On identifiability for chemical systems from measurable variables. Journal of Mathematical Chemistry. 52(4):1023-1035. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10910-013-0149-4S10231035524M.J. Almendral, A. Alonso, M.S. Fuentes, Development of new methodologies for on-line determination of the bromate. J. Environ. Monit. 11, 1381–1388 (2009)A. Ben-Zvi, P.J. McLellan, K.B. McAuley, Identifiability of linear time-invariant differential-algebraic systems. I. The generalized Markov parameter approach. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 42, 6607–6618 (2003)T.P. Bonacquisti, A drinking water utility’s perspective on bromide, bromate, and ozonation. Toxicology 221, 145–148 (2006)R. Butler, A. Godley, L. Lytton, E. Cartmell, Bromate environmental contamination: review of impact and possible treatment. Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Tech. 35, 193–217 (2005)R. Butler, L. Lytton, A.R. Godley, I.E. Tothill, E. Cartmell, Bromate analysis in groundwater and wastewater samples. J. Environ. Monit. 7, 999–1006 (2005)B. Cantó, S.C. Cardona, C. Coll, J. Navarro-Laboulais, E. Sánchez, Dynamic optimization of a gas-liquid reactor. J. Math. Chem. 50, 381–393 (2012)B. Cantó, C. Coll and E. Sánchez, Identifiability of a class of discretized linear partial differential algebraic equations, Math. Problems Eng. 2011, 1–12 (2011)A. Constantinides, N. Mostoufi, Numerical Methods for Chemical Engineers with MATLAB Applications, Alkis Constantinides and Navid Mostoufi, Upper Saddle River (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1999)P. Englezos, N. Kalogerakis, Applied Parameter Estimation for Chemical Engineers (Marcel Dekker, New York, 2001)U. von Gunten, Ozonation of drinking water. Part II. Disinfection and by-product formation in presence of bromide, iodide or chlorine. Water Res. 37, 1469–1487 (2003)B. Legube, B. Parinet, K. Gelinet, F. Berne, J-Ph Croue, Modeling of bromate formation by ozonation of surface waters in drinking water treatment. Water Res. 38, 2185–2195 (2004)Q. Liu, L.M. Schurter, C.E. Muller, S. Aloisio, J.S. Francisco, D.W. Margerum, Kinetics and mechanisms of aqueous ozone reactions with bromide, sulfite, hydrogen sulfite, iodide, and nitrite ions. Inorg. Chem. 40, 4436–4442 (2001)J.B. Rawling, J.G. Ekerdt, Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design Fundamentals (Nob Hill Pub, Madison, 2002)W.E. Stewart, M. Caracotsios, Computer Aided Modelling of Reactive Systems (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2008)P. Westerhoff, R. Song, G. Amy, R. Minear, Numerical kinetic models for bromide oxidation to bromine and bromate. Water Res. 32, 1687–1699 (1998)World Health Organization, Bromate in Drinking-water, Document WHO/SDE/WSH/05.08/78, http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/en/ (accesed 26/07/12

Corn and wheat residue management effects on greenhouse gas emissions in the Mid-Atlantic USA

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from crop residue management have been studied extensively, yet the effects of harvesting more than one crop residue in a rotation have not been reported. Here, we measured the short-term changes in methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in response to residue removal from continuous corn (Zea mays L.) (CC) and corn-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) (CWS) rotations in the Mid-Atlantic USA. A first experiment retained five corn stover rates (0, 3.33, 6.66, 10, and 20 Mg ha-1) in a continuous corn (CC) in Blacksburg, VA, in 2016 and 2017. Two other experiments, initiated during the wheat and corn phases of the CWS rotation in New Kent, VA, utilized a factorial combination of retained corn (0, 3.33, 6.66, and 10.0 Mg ha-1) and wheat residue (0, 1, 2, and 3 Mg ha-1). Soybean residue was not varied. Different crop retention rates did not affect CO2 fluxes in any of the field studies. In Blacksburg, retaining 5 Mg ha-1 stover or more increased CH4 and N2O emissions by ~25%. Maximum CH4 and N2O fluxes (4.16 and 5.94 mg m-2 day-1) occurred with 200% (20 Mg ha-1) retention. Two cycles of stover management in Blacksburg, and one cycle of corn or wheat residue management in New Kent did not affect GHG fluxes. This study is the first to investigate the effects of crop residue on GHG emissions in a multi-crop system in humid temperate zones. Longer-term studies are warranted to understand crop residue management effects on GHG emissions in these systems

The HLA class II allele DRB1*1501 is over-represented in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and medically refractory lung disease with a grim prognosis. Although the etiology of IPF remains perplexing, abnormal adaptive immune responses are evident in many afflicted patients. We hypothesized that perturbations of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele frequencies, which are often seen among patients with immunologic diseases, may also be present in IPF patients. Methods/Principal Findings: HLA alleles were determined in subpopulations of IPF and normal subjects using molecular typing methods. HLA-DRB1*15 was over-represented in a discovery cohort of 79 Caucasian IPF subjects who had lung transplantations at the University of Pittsburgh (36.7%) compared to normal reference populations. These findings were prospectively replicated in a validation cohort of 196 additional IPF subjects from four other U.S. medical centers that included both ambulatory patients and lung transplantation recipients. High-resolution typing was used to further define specific HLA-DRB1*15 alleles. DRB1*1501 prevalence in IPF subjects was similar among the 143 ambulatory patients and 132 transplant recipients (31.5% and 34.8%, respectively, p = 0.55). The aggregate prevalence of DRB1*1501 in IPF patients was significantly greater than among 285 healthy controls (33.1% vs. 20.0%, respectively, OR 2.0; 95%CI 1.3-2.9, p = 0.0004). IPF patients with DRB1*1501 (n = 91) tended to have decreased diffusing capacities for carbon monoxide (DLCO) compared to the 184 disease subjects who lacked this allele (37.8±1.7% vs. 42.8±1.4%, p = 0.036). Conclusions/Significance: DRB1*1501 is more prevalent among IPF patients than normal subjects, and may be associated with greater impairment of gas exchange. These data are novel evidence that immunogenetic processes can play a role in the susceptibility to and/or manifestations of IPF. Findings here of a disease association at the HLA-DR locus have broad pathogenic implications, illustrate a specific chromosomal area for incremental, targeted genomic study, and may identify a distinct clinical phenotype among patients with this enigmatic, morbid lung disease