Summarising the complex data generated by multiple cross sectional quality indicators in a way that patients, clinicians, managers and policymakers find useful is challenging. A common approach is aggregation to create summary measures such as star ratings and balanced score cards, but these may conceal the detail needed to focus quality improvement. We propose an alternative way of summarising...

In the literature, a number of fuzzy-based power control schemes have been proposed for systems with a single rate. However, emerging CDMA cellular systems are expected to include multimedia services. In such systems, different services have different quality of service (QoS) requirements, such as minimum transmission rates and tolerable delays. This paper introduces an adaptive fuzzy-based con...

In a transport network scenario, Data Plane connections controlled by either a Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) Control Plane (Soft Permanent Connections SPC) or a Management System (Permanent Connections PC) may independently coexist. The ability of transforming an existing PC into an SPC and vice versa -without actually affecting Data Plane traffic being carried over it -is a...

• Objective: To apply statistical process control (SPC) techniques to evaluate 3 components of the phacoemulsification cataract surgery procedure. • Design: Retrospective chart review. • Methods: We analyzed 180 cataract surgeries performed by 6 cataract surgeons (3 “high-volume” and 3 “low-volume” surgeons). Surgical parameters evaluated were phacoemulsification time (seconds), phacoemulsifica...

In a transport network scenario, Data Plane connections controlled by either a Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) Control Plane (Soft Permanent Connections SPC) or a Management System (Permanent Connections PC) may independently coexist. The ability of transforming an existing PC into an SPC and vice versa -without actually affecting Data Plane traffic being carried over it -is a...

Theoretical scheduling has reached a mature state but there are difficulties in using the theory in practice. One of the issues is the occurrence of disturbances. Studies have been done to investigate the possibility of using control chart techniques to detect disturbances in production planning and scheduling. Appropriate control chart techniques have been developed that avoid statistical prob...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Unexpected diagnosis of synchronous second primary cancers (SPC) complicates physicians' decision-making because clinical details of squamous esophageal cancer (EC) patients with SPC have been limited. We evaluated clinical features and treatment outcomes of patients with synchronous SPC detected during the initial staging of squamous EC. METHODS We identified a total of 317 c...

One of the main controlling parameters in diesel engine combustion is the fuel – air mixing process that has direct effects on engine performance and pollutant emissions, reviewing over previous literature showed that split injection strategies could satisfy this purpose very well. For the first time and in this paper, pilot and double injection strategies were combined and formed new triple in...

Single-photon cooling (SPC), noted for its potential as a versatile method for cooling a variety of atomic species, has recently been demonstrated experimentally. In this paper, we study possible ways to improve the performance of SPC by applying it to atoms trapped inside a wedge billiard. The main feature of the wedge billiard for atoms, also experimentally realized recently, is that the natu...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators of gene translation and have been suggested as potent biomarkers in various disease states. In this study, we established an efficient method for simultaneous determination of multiple miRNA levels, employing the previously developed SPC-SBE (solid phase capture-single base extension) approach and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry (MS). In this approach, we...