Developing Mobile BIM/2D Barcode-Based Automated Facility Management System

Facility management (FM) has become an important topic in research on the operation and maintenance phase. Managing the work of FM effectively is extremely difficult owing to the variety of environments. One of the difficulties is the performance of two-dimensional (2D) graphics when depicting facilities. Building information modeling (BIM) uses precise geometry and relevant data to support the facilities depicted in three-dimensional (3D) object-oriented computer-aided design (CAD). This paper proposes a new and practical methodology with application to FM that uses an integrated 2D barcode and the BIM approach. Using 2D barcode and BIM technologies, this study proposes a mobile automated BIM-based facility management (BIMFM) system for FM staff in the operation and maintenance phase. The mobile automated BIMFM system is then applied in a selected case study of a commercial building project in Taiwan to verify the proposed methodology and demonstrate its effectiveness in FM practice. The combined results demonstrate that a BIMFM-like system can be an effective mobile automated FM tool. The advantage of the mobile automated BIMFM system lies not only in improving FM work efficiency for the FM staff but also in facilitating FM updates and transfers in the BIM environment

Radiographic Disclosure of Fournier’s Gangrene

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Developing Mobile- and BIM-Based Integrated Visual Facility Maintenance Management System

Facility maintenance management (FMM) has become an important topic for research on the operation phase of the construction life cycle. Managing FMM effectively is extremely difficult owing to various factors and environments. One of the difficulties is the performance of 2D graphics when depicting maintenance service. Building information modeling (BIM) uses precise geometry and relevant data to support the maintenance service of facilities depicted in 3D object-oriented CAD. This paper proposes a new and practical methodology with application to FMM using BIM technology. Using BIM technology, this study proposes a BIM-based facility maintenance management (BIMFMM) system for maintenance staff in the operation and maintenance phase. The BIMFMM system is then applied in selected case study of a commercial building project in Taiwan to verify the proposed methodology and demonstrate its effectiveness in FMM practice. Using the BIMFMM system, maintenance staff can access and review 3D BIM models for updating related maintenance records in a digital format. Moreover, this study presents a generic system architecture and its implementation. The combined results demonstrate that a BIMFMM-like system can be an effective visual FMM tool

Intra-abdominal abscess caused by toothpick injury

SummaryWe present the case of a 42-year-old female who presented to our emergency department (ED) complaining of epigastric pain for four days. She had been seen in the outpatient department and ED previously for evaluation, but continued to experience epigastric pain with fever. Emergency panendoscopy was performed and a toothpick was discovered impacted in the duodenal bulb. The gastroenterologist was unable to remove the toothpick endoscopically. Computed tomography of the abdomen revealed a long and straight hyperdense foreign body, and intra-abdominal abscess formation. An emergency laparotomy was performed. The patient recovered gradually and was discharged 11 days later. She could not remember when she swallowed the wooden toothpick, but guessed that it was while out drinking. There is an old wives’ tale in Taiwan that putting a toothpick in the cup while drinking beer reduces the likelihood of abdominal distention from the carbonation of the beer

Use of an open-source CAD software program and additive manufacturing technology to design and fabricate a definitive cast for retrofitting a crown to an existing removable partial denture

This technical report describes a digital process for designing and fabricating a stackable definitive cast and die system to facilitate the fabrication of a new surveyed crown to retrofit to a removable partial denture (RPD). By using an open-source computer-aided design (CAD) software program, this technique provides an economical option for dental clinicians and laboratory technicians to use intraoral scans and design a stackable definitive cast and die system with minimal financial investment in the CAD software. In addition, this technique provides the advantage of a conventional indirect technique in that it can create a definitive cast with an RPD clasp assembly ready for the dental technician to properly contour the new surveyed crown, but without the need for the patient to be without the RPD during the process

Sonographic Detection of Pseudoaneurysm in Vascular Injury in Emergency Department

A 31-year-old man suffered from a stab wound to the lower extremity. The patient had a hard sign of a vascular injury (a diminished distal pulse) and therefore probably should have undergone operative repair, but refused. One week later, he returned to our emergency department with a painful right thigh swelling. Bedside sonography was used to detect a pseudoaneurysm. Emergency sonography is a fast, non-invasive, and rapid decision-making approach in emergency practice

Out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest in the Elderly

SummaryBackgroundTo investigate the characteristics of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in the elderly, we retrospectively studied a 6-month series of cases in an emergency department (ED) of a medical center in northern Taiwan.MethodsThere were 145 OHCA cases sent to our ED from January 1, 2007 to June 30, 2007. Of these, 28 traumarelated and five pediatric cases were excluded, and 112 cases were eventually enrolled into our study. The 112 cases were divided into an elderly group (≥ 65 years) of 81 cases and a non-elderly group of 31 cases. There were 64 males and 48 females (male/female ratio, 1.33:1) aged 24–99 years. We collected the laboratory data and made comparisons between the elderly and non-elderly group in arterial blood gas, hemoglobin, potassium, glucose, and troponin I. We used the statistical software SPSS version 11.5.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) with t test analysis. The clinical significance was set at p < 0.05.ResultsReturn of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) occurred in 46 cases (41%) after standard resuscitation by advanced cardiac life support. The elderly group had a higher ROSC rate than the non-elderly group, but this was not significant (44% vs. 32%; p = 0.335). The elderly group had less acidosis, less hypercapnia, less hyperkalemia, less hyperglycemia and a higher rate of elevated troponin I than the non-elderly group, but the differences were not significant. The elderly group had significantly lower hemoglobin levels than the non-elderly group (10.52 ± 3.04 vs. 12.6 ± 3.32g/dL; p = 0.003). The glucose levels of the ROSC group were significantly higher than the non-ROSC group in the elderly (230.14 ± 130.4 vs. 195.1 ± 147.7mg/dL; p = 0.049). In the group of acute coronary syndrome (ACS)-related OHCA, the ROSC rate in the elderly group was significantly higher than that of the non-elderly (54.2% vs. 40%; p = 0.014). The elderly group had a slightly lower rate of survival than the non-elderly group (7.4% vs. 9.7%; p = 0.159).ConclusionThe elderly OHCA cases had an anemic status. The elderly had a higher ROSC rate in cases with relative hyperglycemia and ACS-related OHCA. This finding provides us with the theory of trialing administration of glucose water during resuscitation in OHCA cases

A Bayesian measurement error model for two-channel cell-based RNAi data with replicates

RNA interference (RNAi) is an endogenous cellular process in which small double-stranded RNAs lead to the destruction of mRNAs with complementary nucleoside sequence. With the production of RNAi libraries, large-scale RNAi screening in human cells can be conducted to identify unknown genes involved in a biological pathway. One challenge researchers face is how to deal with the multiple testing issue and the related false positive rate (FDR) and false negative rate (FNR). This paper proposes a Bayesian hierarchical measurement error model for the analysis of data from a two-channel RNAi high-throughput experiment with replicates, in which both the activity of a particular biological pathway and cell viability are monitored and the goal is to identify short hair-pin RNAs (shRNAs) that affect the pathway activity without affecting cell activity. Simulation studies demonstrate the flexibility and robustness of the Bayesian method and the benefits of having replicates in the experiment. This method is illustrated through analyzing the data from a RNAi high-throughput screening that searches for cellular factors affecting HCV replication without affecting cell viability; comparisons of the results from this HCV study and some of those reported in the literature are included.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS496 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org