I want first to thank Mr. Fraser and other responsible individuals for the honour conferred upon me by inviting me to give the Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon lecture. I consider this a great honour-and doubly so since I have been invited to give the first of the series. Since coming to Belfast I have had the opportunity and privilege of learning a great deal about Sir Thomas Dixon. It is difficult t...

As we know that, the Fick principle involves many limitations. Most important concern is measuring oxygen consumption (VO2) for Fick calculation. However, direct measurement of VO2 is difficult and expensive. Therefore, it has been generally accepted that, predicted VO2 values can be use in practice (1). A table has been published in European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guideline which is point...

The construction process control of large-scale projects is one of the difficulties and the keys in the owner’s project management. Based on generalization process index, this paper proposes an approach to construction project process control. The paper elaborates on the concept and calculation of generalization process index, which, on analysis, possesses Markov property. Monthly generalizatio...

INTRODUCTION Obesity may influence postoperative outcome after tumor surgery. We evaluated the impact of patients' body mass index (BMI) on peri- and postoperative morbidity and outcome following radical cystectomy for bladder cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS 390 consecutive patients who underwent radical cystectomy due to bladder cancer from January 1986 to December 2004 were reviewed. According...

A Supply Chain Synergy Measurement Model is put forward on the foundation of relational capital and interactive learning after going through present literatures related to Synergy Measurement. The order degree of subsystems is calculated, synergetic degree of the whole system obtained thereby. The index system for operability is established based on the aforesaid model, considering the characte...

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIMS Poor endoscope operability remains a significant challenge during colorectal endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD). We retrospectively evaluated the experience and clinical usefulness of a new single-use splinting tube in deep colonic ESD in the setting of poor scope operability. PATIENTS AND METHODS Among 691 patients with colorectal tumors treated with ESD at Hiro...

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Keywords: Petri net Open net Operability Web service Theory of computation We study open nets as Petri net models of web services, with a link to the practically relevant language WS-BPEL. For those nets, we investigate the problem of operability which we consider as fundamental as the successful notion of soundness for workflow nets, i.e., Petri net models...

BACKGROUND This study was performed to determine whether a preoperative hemodynamic evaluation with oxygen and inhaled nitric oxide identifies patients with pulmonary hypertension who are appropriate candidates for corrective cardiac surgery or transplantation more accurately than an evaluation with oxygen alone. METHODS AND RESULTS At 10 institutions, 124 patients with heart disease and seve...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate a construction robot master-slave teleoperation system with video cameras and force feedback based on behavioral and subjective measures. The system can provide an operator with a realistic force feeling according to the actuator condition using the velocity-driving force characteristics. The teleoperation system comprises two joysticks on the master sid...