AIM OF STUDY To develop an early warning score (EWS) system based on the statistical properties of the vital signs in at-risk hospitalised patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS A large dataset comprising 64,622 h of vital-sign data, acquired from 863 acutely ill in-hospital patients using bedside monitors, was used to investigate the statistical properties of the four main vital signs. Normalised h...

Poverty is no longer uniquely a humanitarian challenge for the developed nations of the West; it is now a first-order security problem. The evidence is now overwhelming that poverty contributes to violent conflict, helps the spread of infectious diseases, threatens global income growth and causes environmental damage. Governments are beginning to react to this threat, but have yet to mount a co...

It is a well-known fact that cache hits are vital to superscalar processor performance. The successful execution of a load allows resources to be freed up and it also allows dependent instructions to proceed to execution. As processor cores operating frequencies rise rapidly, the cache hierarchy is struggling to keep up in terms of speed while still trying to provide good hit rates, because the...

Power systems should have acceptable reliability in order to operate properly. Highly available and dependable protective relays help to obtain the desirable reliability. The relays should be periodically evaluated during specific intervals to achieve the mentioned characteristics. The Routine Test Interval (RTI) should be optimized in order to economically maximize the reliability of the prote...

BACKGROUND In view of the limitations of survey-based demographic techniques for infant mortality estimation, the current strategy of some developing countries is to improve vital information. This article presents recent progress in the improvement of national databases in Brazil. METHODS For the vital information analysis, the data sources are the Mortality Information System and the Live B...