A HYBRID METHODOLOGY FOR MODELING RISK OF ADVERSE EVENTS IN COMPLEX HEALTHCARE SETTINGS

Despite efforts to provide safe, effective medical care, adverse events still occur with some regularity. While risk cannot be entirely eliminated from healthcare activities, an important goal is to develop effective and durable mitigation strategies to render the system `safer'. In order to do this, though, we must develop models that comprehensively and realistically characterize the risk. In the healthcare domain, this can be extremely challenging due to the wide variability in the way that healthcare processes and interventions are executed and also due to the dynamic nature of risk in this particular domain. In this study we have developed a generic methodology for evaluating dynamic changes in adverse event risk in acute care hospitals as a function of organizational and non-organizational factors, using a combination of modeling formalisms. First, a system dynamics (SD) framework is used to demonstrate how organizational level and policy level contributions to risk evolve over time, and how policies and decisions may affect the general system-level contribution to adverse event risk. It also captures the feedback of organizational factors and decisions over time and the non-linearities in these feedback effects. Second, Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) framework is used to represent patient-level factors and also physician level decisions and factors in the management of an individual patient, which contribute to the risk of hospital-acquired adverse event. The model is intended to support hospital decisions with regards to staffing, length of stay, and investment in safeties, which evolve dynamically over time. The methodology has been applied in modeling the two types of common adverse events; pressure ulcers and vascular catheter-associated infection, and has been validated with eight years of clinical data

LTD型パルスパワー発生器の特性評価とこれを用いた大気圧放電研究

国立大学法人長岡技術科学大

Identifying the Factors Affecting Entrepreneurial Attitude of Athlete & Non-athlete University Students

Considering entrepreneurship as a state of mind, we have to admit that nowadays, apart from business and economy, any person can think and act in an entrepreneurial manner. Hence, not only the “entrepreneurship enhancing†policies should not be confined to higher education levels, but also they have to be included in elementary and non-athlete programs. In this study, the level of entrepreneurial attitude, and the effect of some demographic variables on it were investigated among a group of 406 university students in Tehran. The main tool used in this study was the translated Athyde’s ATE questionnaire (attitude towards entrepreneurial business initialization) which was tested for reliability by a pretest and computation of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient for the main study and all its components. The results showed that the level of entrepreneurial attitude was above average among athlete students, in all of the investigated aspects and components. They also showed that variables such as gender, having a self-employed father, employment status of mother, and the type of university (athlete &non-athlete) have no significant impact on the level of entrepreneurial attitude in students

Viral vector mimicking and nucleus targeted nanoparticles based on Dexamethasone conjugated Polyethylenimine nano-liposomes: Preparation and evaluation of transfection efficiency

Non-viral vectors such as polymers and liposomes have been used for gene delivery systems to overcome intrinsic problems of viral vectors, but transfection efficiency of these vectors is lower than viral vectors. In the present study, we conjugated dexamethasone (Dexa) to branched polyethylenimine (b-PEI), in combinations with cationic liposomes as a nonviral system to improve transfection efficiency. Cationic liposomes containing DOTAP and cholesterol were prepared by thin-film hydration following extrusion method. Dexamethasone mesylate was synthesized and conjugated to polyethylenimine by a one-step reaction. A novel gene delivery system, Lipopolyplex was developed by premixing liposome and different Mw of bPEI-Dexa as carriers following by addition of plasmid at three different C/P ratios. The resultant complexes were characterized for their size, zeta potential and ability of DNA condensation. Luciferase reporter gene was used for determination of transfection efficiency in neuro2A cells. Also, the toxicity of gene carriers was investigated in this cell line. Mean particle size of prepared complexes was less than 200 nm and there was no significant difference in size by increasing molecular weight of PEIs. All complexes had positive surface charge. Complete condensation of DNA was occurred at C/P ratio of 1 for all complexes. lipopolyplexes were more efficient than polyplexes and lipoplexes alone and transfection efficiency was improved by adding dexamethasone. Complexes containing liposome, PEI 10 kDa and dexamethasone had the highest transfection activity. Furthermore, non-viral vectors described in this study showed low cytotoxicity. The results of this study confirm that PEI in combination with liposome as lipopolyplex have low toxicity and may enhance transfection efficiency. Moreover, conjugation of dexamethasone to PEI, in combination with cationic liposome might be useful for the gene deliver

Identifying Effective Factors on Technological Entrepreneurship in Iranian Nanotechnology SMEs

Technological entrepreneurship is the latest issue in the field of entrepreneurship and fostering competitive advantages in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which has been received special attention. Given the lack of coherent literature review to apply technological strategies in SMEs, and also because of the role of technology based firms which are active in industries with new technologies, such as Nano-Technology industry, while the technological entrepreneurship literature review has been investigated, this article is principally intended to identify effective factors on technological entrepreneurship in Iranian Nanotechnology SMEs. The research methodology of the current article is a mixed one; in the qualitative stage, semi-structured and open interviews and investigation of related documents have been used, and in the quantitative stage, the questionnaire has been applied to gather data. In the research’s quantitative stage, a statistical population consisted of managers, expert employees of the case study have been considered, and the simple random sampling method has been used. In addition, in this stage, the questionnaires have been used as the data collection tool and the experts in the qualitative stage measured the research’s validity, and the questionnaire’s reliability has been approved through Cronbach’s alpha of 0.81. The mean analysis has been applied in this stage for the data analysis. The findings of this paper shows that the effective factors on technological entrepreneurship in Iranian Nanotechnology SMEs are categorizes in the four issues of “Internal Processesâ€, “Individual Factorsâ€, “Institutions†and “External Networksâ€

Investigating the impact of the use of security equipment in the confrontation with the arrival of alcoholic drinks "Case Study of Ghorveh City"

The subject of the present study is to investigate the effect of the use of law enforcement equipment on the criminal response to the arrival of alcoholic beverages in the city of Ghorveh. This research has been conducted with a quantitative and survey approach and a researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical population of the study consisted of 20 expert police officers, responsible and knowledgeable in the subject of the city of Ghorveh and all of them were tried to complete the questionnaire. Validity and reliability of the research tool (questionnaire) were determined through face validity and Cronbach's alpha test using Spss software. In describing the research fields, the results showed that most respondents were distributed in the "large" and "very large" spectrum. In other words, the majority of respondents believed that the use of appropriate security equipment to counteract the smuggling of alcoholic beverages in Qorveh city has been effective in preventing this issue. According to the results of this research, the use of appropriate equipment to fight smuggling of alcoholic beverages in the country as a whole, and in particular in the city of Ghorveh, is extremely effective and effective. According to respondents, the use of modern and new car equipment (With an average response of 4.85 points) As well as the use of databases (With an average response of 4.65 points) In Ghorveh, the city has the most impact on the fight against smuggling of alcoholic beverages

Time Distance: A Novel Collision Prediction and Path Planning Method

Motion planning is an active field of research in robot navigation and autonomous driving. There are plenty of classical and heuristic motion planning methods applicable to mobile robots and ground vehicles. This paper is dedicated to introducing a novel method for collision prediction and path planning. The method is called Time Distance (TD), and its basis returns to the swept volume idea. However, there are considerable differences between the TD method and existing methods associated with the swept volume concept. In this method, time is obtained as a dependent variable in TD functions. TD functions are functions of location, velocity, and geometry of objects, determining the TD of objects with respect to any location. Known as a relative concept, TD is defined as the time interval that must be spent in order for an object to reach a certain location. It is firstly defined for the one-dimensional case and then generalized to 2D space. The collision prediction algorithm consists of obtaining the TD of different points of an object (the vehicle) with respect to all objects of the environment using an explicit function which is a function of TD functions. The path planning algorithm uses TD functions and two other functions called Z-Infinity and Route Function to create the collision-free path in a dynamic environment. Both the collision prediction and the path planning algorithms are evaluated in simulations. Comparisons indicate the capability of the method to generate length optimal paths as the most effective methods do