Over time, industrial equipment, particularly in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries, is subjected to various forms of degradation damage that can affect its structural integrity. Most Codes Standards pertaining components do not address issues damage. As such, performing a Fitness For Service (FFS) assessment recommended make run-repair-replace decisions an in-service component may be f...

We report a molecular dynamics study of homogeneous bubble nucleation in a Lennard-Jones fluid. The rate of bubble nucleation is estimated using forward-flux sampling (FFS). We find that cavitation starts with compact bubbles rather than with ramified structures, as had been suggested by Shen and Debenedetti (J. Chem. Phys. 1999, 111, 3581). Our estimate of the bubble-nucleation rate is higher ...

In this conceptual paper we elaborate on the replication of innovation in professional service firms (PSFs). We do this by integrating literature streams on replication, knowledge sharing, productization of services and management of PSF’s. First we discuss the object of replication in order to analyze what might be leveraged and replicated. Then we address the various levels of replication (in...

BACKGROUND The purpose of the study is to explore the reasons why specialist doctors travel to provide regular rural outreach services, and whether reasons relate to (1) salaried or private fee-for-service practice and (2) providing rural outreach services in more remote locations. METHODS A national cross-sectional study of specialist doctors from the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employm...

Medicare has lagged behind the private sector in its reliance on managed care, which, properly done, has the potential to restrain budget growth and enhance quality. This paper addresses how the Medicare fee-for-service program--traditional Medicare--might apply managed care techniques. It first discusses the institutional constraints Medicare faces in implementing managed care techniques and t...

Climate variability and change are considerably important for a wide range of human activities and natural ecosystems. Climate science has made major advances during the last two decades, yet climate information is neither routinely useful for nor used in planning. What is needed is a mechanism, a national climate service (NCS), to connect climate science to decision-relevant questions and supp...

We develop a rigorous model to simulate an LCD's contrast ratio (CR) and viewing angle by considering the depolarization effect in thin-film transistor substrate, LC layer, color filter (CF) array, etc. To mitigate the depolarization effect, we propose a new device structure by adding a thin in-cell polarizer between LC layer and CF array. Based on the analysis using our new model, the maximum ...

Background—Mitral valve surgery in older adults carries with it substantial morbidity and mortality risks, yet there are a paucity of national surveillance data. Therefore, we sought to determine trends in hospitalization rate, readmission, and mortality among Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) patients undergoing mitral valve surgery. Methods and Results—Inpatient Medicare standard analytic files ...

BACKGROUND Because managed care is increasingly prevalent in health care finance and delivery, it is important to ascertain its effects on health care quality relative to that of fee-for-service plans. Some stakeholders are concerned that basing gatekeeping, provider selection, and utilization management on cost may lower quality of care. To date, research on this topic has been inconclusive, l...

Individual localization services seldom satisfy the requirements for accurate, robust, punctual, and seamless location information. To enhance the provisioning, a set of challenges has to be addressed, pertaining to handover, fusion, and integration of individual localization services. In the following, we advertise the Standardized Localization Service (SLSR), a middleware architecture for ach...