Ventilators vs. Robots: Optimizing for Obese PEEPle

Killer Robots vs Friendly Fridges

This paper presents an analysis of the vision behind Ambient Intelligence and the forms of interaction central to the vision (including agents and robots) from a philosophical perspective, trying to frame it into the terms introduced by Don Ihde to characterise the existential relations humans entertain with the world. We compare and contrast the ambient intelligent vision on technology with ot...

Stockpiling Ventilators for Influenza Pandemics

Stockpiling Ventilators for Influenza Pandemics

In preparing for influenza pandemics, public health agencies stockpile critical medical resources. Determining appropriate quantities and locations for such resources can be challenging, given the considerable uncertainty in the timing and severity of future pandemics. We introduce a method for optimizing stockpiles of mechanical ventilators, which are critical for treating hospitalized influen...

Optimizing the Number of Robots for Web Search Engines

Robots are deployed by a Web search engine for collecting information from diierent Web servers in order to maintain the currency of its data base of Web pages. In this paper, we investigate the number of robots to be used by a search engine so as to maximize the currency of the data base without putting an unnecessary load on the network. We use a queue-ing model to represent the system. The a...

Optimizing care for the obese patient in interventional radiology.

With the rising epidemic of obesity, interventional radiologists are treating increasing numbers of obese patients, as comorbidities associated with obesity preclude more invasive treatments. These patients are at heightened risk of vascular and oncologic disease, both of which often require interventional radiology care. Obese patients pose unique challenges in imaging, technical feasibility, ...