BACKGROUND In spite of the high number of tools designed to measure the complexity of care, there is still great diversity in the meaning of this concept. METHODS The study was carried out using the concept analysis method as described by Beth Rodgers; 27 international papers were selected using PubMed, Web of Science and CINAHL data sets, without any time constraints. RESULTS A number of s...

The media has been found to have an impact on public debate, public opinion, and public policy agendas. Public debate, and public opinion about water conservation and water supply management projects matter because they can influence specific outcomes. For example, public opinion can potentially lead to positive behaviour, like increased water conservation, or potentially negative behaviours su...

A finite vacuum energy density implies the existence of a UV scale for gravitational modes. This gives a phenomenological scale to the dynamical equations governing the cosmological expansion that must satisfy constraints consistent with quantum measurability and spatial flatness. Examination of these constraints for the observed dark energy density establishes a time interval from the transiti...

In this paper, an assembled cantilever fiber touch trigger probe was developed for three-dimensional measurements of clear microstructures. The probe consists of a shaft assembled vertically to an optical fiber cantilever and a probing sphere located at the free end of the shaft. The laser is emitted from the free end of the fiber cantilever and converges on the photosensitive surface of the ca...

Establishing a-priori mission performance guarantees is crucial if autonomous robots are to be used with confidence in missions where failure could incur high costs in life and property damage. Automatic mission software verification, in addition to simulation and experimental benchmarking, is a key component of the solution for establishing performance guarantees. This component requires autom...

Welcome to the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems’s special issue for “FUZZYSS’2011: 2nd International Fuzzy Systems Symposium”. Since its introduction by Prof. Dr. Lotfi A. Zadeh fuzzy logic, fuzzy sets and systems have been applied to various problems in many diverse areas. As everything try to evolve towards better states, the fuzzy theory and its applications are also evolving to mode...

The difficulties in measuring total fitness of individuals necessitate the use of fitness surrogates in ecological and evolutionary studies. These surrogates can be different components of fitness (e.g. survival or fecundity), or proxies more uncertainly related to fitness (e.g. body size or growth rate). Ideally, fitness would be measured over the lifetime of individuals; however, more conveni...

In this paper we present our visual analysis results of visitor movement data in an amusement park during a weekend. We assume most people move among several amusement park spots in a specific pattern. And for few people whose movement pattern don’t belong to any group we assume, we pay special concern about their route for they may related to a crime happened in amusement park during the weeke...

Background Upon graduation, physiotherapists are required to manage clinical caseloads involving deteriorating patients with complex conditions. In, particular, emergency on-call physiotherapists are required to provide respiratory/cardiorespiratory/cardiothoracic physiotherapy, out of normal working hours, without senior physiotherapist support. To optimise patient safety, physiotherapists are...

AMract-The minimax approach to the design of systems that are robust with respect to modeling uncertainties is studied using a game theoretic formulation in which the peiformance functional and the sets of modeling uncertainties and admissible design policies are arbitrary. The existence and characterization of minimax robust solutions that form saddle points are discussed through various metho...