Automated Diagnosis of Clinic Workflows

Outpatient clinics often run behind schedule due to patients who arrive late or appointments that run longer than expected. We sought to develop a generalizable method that would allow healthcare providers to diagnose problems in workflow that disrupt the schedule on any given provider clinic day. We use a constraint optimization problem to identify the least number of appointment modifications that make the rest of the schedule run on-time. We apply this method to an outpatient clinic at Vanderbilt. For patient seen in this clinic between March 27, 2017 and April 21, 2017, long cycle times tended to affect the overall schedule more than late patients. Results from this workflow diagnosis method could be used to inform interventions to help clinics run smoothly, thus decreasing patient wait times and increasing provider utilization

Theoretical Study of Pressure Broadening of Lithium Resonance Lines by Helium Atoms

Quantum mechanical calculations are performed of the emission and absorption profiles of the lithium 2s-2p resonance line under the influence of a helium perturbing gas. We use carefully constructed potential energy surfaces and transition dipole moments to compute the emission and absorption coefficients at temperatures from 200 to 3000 K at wavelengths between 500 nm and 1000 nm. Contributions from quasi-bound states are included. The resulting red and blue wing profiles are compared with previous theoretical calculations and with an experiment, carried out at a temperature of 670 K.Comment: 10 figure

A Structural Investigation into the Price and Wage Dynamics in Hong Kong

This paper estimates the degree of wage and price flexibility of the Hong Kong economy with the use of a stylised dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model developed for the Hong Kong economy. It also studies the factors contributing to deflation in Hong Kong following the Asian financial crisis (i.e. during the period from 1998 to 2003) and finds that declining import prices were the main culprit. Consistent with earlier studies on the subject and anecdotal evidence, wages and prices in Hong Kong are found to be (relatively) flexible.DSGE, Bayesian Estimation, Nominal Rigidities

Theoretical Study of Sodium and Potassium Resonance Lines Pressure Broadened by Helium Atoms

We perform fully quantum mechanical calculations in the binary approximation of the emission and absorption profiles of the sodium $3s$-$3p$ and potassium $4s$-$4p$ resonance lines under the influence of a helium perturbing gas. We use carefully constructed potential energy surfaces and transition dipole moments to compute the emission and absorption coefficients at temperatures from 158 to 3000 K. Contributions from quasi-bound states are included. The resulting red and blue wing profiles agree well with previous theoretical calculations and with experimental measurements.Comment: 16 figure

Relationship between Crude Oil Prices and Stock Prices of Alternative Energy Companies with Recent Evidence

This paper examines the recent interactive relationships between crude oil prices and stock performances of alternative energy companies. Oil prices and stock index of alternative energy sector are found independent from each other before late 2006. Contrary to existing studies, however, we find significant interdependence between oil prices and stock index of alternative energy industry in the recent years. Since late 2006, oil prices become significantly responsible for the stock performances of alternative energy companies. This finding suggests that the stock market investors of alternative energy sector incorporate oil price shocks into their trading decisions only recently.Crude oil price; Alternative energy; Oil stock index