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Pathway Variation Analysis (Pva): Modelling And Simulations, Nagesh Shukla, Sudi Lahiri, Darek Ceglarek Nov 2015

Pathway Variation Analysis (Pva): Modelling And Simulations, Nagesh Shukla, Sudi Lahiri, Darek Ceglarek

Nagesh Shukla

Maintaining a care pathway within a hospital to provide complex care to patients is associated with challenges related to variations from the pathway. This occurs due to ineffective decision-making processes, unclear process steps, the interactions, conflicting performance measures for speciality units, and the availability of resources. These variations from the care pathway or standard care delivery processes lead to longer patient waiting times and lower patient throughput. Traditional approaches to improve the pathway focus primarily on reducing variations within the care pathway such as bottlenecks or throughput within the pathway rather than examining variations from the care pathway. In this …


Intraindividual Variation In Urinary Iodine Concentrations: Effect Of Adjustment On Population Distribution Using Two And Three Repeated Spot Urine Collections, Karen E. Charlton, Marijka Batterham, Li Min Buchanan, Dorothy Mackerras Nov 2015

Intraindividual Variation In Urinary Iodine Concentrations: Effect Of Adjustment On Population Distribution Using Two And Three Repeated Spot Urine Collections, Karen E. Charlton, Marijka Batterham, Li Min Buchanan, Dorothy Mackerras

Dr Marijka Batterham

Objectives: To determine the effect of adjustment for intraindividual variation on estimations of urinary iodine concentrations (UIC), prevalence of iodine deficiency and population distribution of iodine status. Setting: Community-dwelling older adults from New South Wales, Australia. Participants: 84 healthy men and women aged 60–95 years were recruited prior to introduction of the mandatory iodine fortification programme. Primary and secondary outcome: measures UIC data were collected from three spot urine samples, each 1 week apart. Repeated measures analysis of variance were determined between-person (sb) and total (sobs) SDs. Adjusted UIC values were calculated as ((person's UIC−group mean)×(sb/sobs))+group mean, and a corrected …


Rural Disabled Medicare Beneficiaries Spend More Out-Of-Pocket Than Their Urban Counterparts, Erika C. Ziller Phd, Jennifer D. Lenardson Mhs, Andrew F. Coburn Phd Nov 2015

Rural Disabled Medicare Beneficiaries Spend More Out-Of-Pocket Than Their Urban Counterparts, Erika C. Ziller Phd, Jennifer D. Lenardson Mhs, Andrew F. Coburn Phd

Access / Insurance

The majority of Medicare beneficiaries experience gaps between the care they need and costs covered by Medicare and seek supplemental coverage to meet this gap, including private plans offered by former employers or purchased individually, or public coverage through Medicaid. Since rural beneficiaries are more likely to purchase supplemental indemnity coverage individually, to participate in Medicaid, or to go without supplemental coverage altogether, it is likely that their out-of-pocket spending differs from that of urban residents, although the magnitude and direction of these differences may vary for individual beneficiaries. This study used data from the 2006-2010 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey …


Out-Of-Pocket Spending Among Rural Medicare Beneficiaries, Erika C. Ziller Phd, Jennifer D. Lenardson Mhs, Andrew F. Coburn Phd Nov 2015

Out-Of-Pocket Spending Among Rural Medicare Beneficiaries, Erika C. Ziller Phd, Jennifer D. Lenardson Mhs, Andrew F. Coburn Phd

Access / Insurance

The majority of Medicare beneficiaries experience gaps between the care they need and costs covered by Medicare and seek supplemental coverage to meet this gap, including private plans offered by former employers or purchased individually, or public coverage through Medicaid. Since rural beneficiaries are more likely to purchase supplemental indemnity coverage individually, to participate in Medicaid, or to go without supplemental coverage altogether, it is likely that their out-of-pocket spending differs from that of urban residents, although the magnitude and direction of these differences may vary for individual beneficiaries. This study used data from the 2006-2010 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey …


Exceptionally High Levels Of Genetic Diversity In Wheat Curl Mite (Acari: Eriophyidae) Populations From Turkey, W. Szydło, Gary L. Hein, E. Denizhan, A. Skoracka Jun 2015

Exceptionally High Levels Of Genetic Diversity In Wheat Curl Mite (Acari: Eriophyidae) Populations From Turkey, W. Szydło, Gary L. Hein, E. Denizhan, A. Skoracka

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Recent research on the wheat curl mite species complex has revealed extensive genetic diversity that has distinguished several genetic lineages infesting bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and other cereals worldwide. Turkey is the historical region of wheat and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) domestication and diversification. The close relationship between these grasses and the wheat curl mite provoked the question of the genetic diversity of the wheat curl mite in this region. The scope of the study was to investigate genetic differentiation within the wheat curl mite species complex on grasses in Turkey. Twenty-one wheat curl mite populations from …


Plumage Variation In The Saltmarsh Sparrow, Alex J. Minalga May 2015

Plumage Variation In The Saltmarsh Sparrow, Alex J. Minalga

Honors Scholar Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the proposed idea that certain traits of the saltmarsh sparrow change in appearance over the course of a season. This study also investigated whether such changed differed between sexes. I hypothesized that such changes would prove evident, both over time and between sexes. For this study, saltmarsh sparrows (Ammodramus caudacutus) were captured across five sites in Connecticut during the 2011 and 2012 breeding seasons. The saltmarsh sparrows were captured, had their plumage traits scored according to a protocol developed by Shriver et al. (2005), photographed, and released. I conducted scoring …


Feature-Based Optimal Sensor Distribution For Six-Sigma Variation Diagnosis In Multi-Station Assembly Processes, Nagesh Shukla, Darek Ceglarek, Manoj Tiwari Apr 2015

Feature-Based Optimal Sensor Distribution For Six-Sigma Variation Diagnosis In Multi-Station Assembly Processes, Nagesh Shukla, Darek Ceglarek, Manoj Tiwari

Nagesh Shukla

This paper presents a novel feature-based sensor distribution approach for root cause analysis and diagnosis of product 6-sigma variation faults in multi-station assembly processes. Traditional approaches in sensor distribution are based on the assumption that measurement points can be selected at arbitrary locations on the part or subassembly. This causes challenges such as difficult calibration of measurement system, increased errors of measured features, and lack of explicit relations between measured features and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T). In the proposed approach, we develop methodology to maximize the number of measurement points that are placed at critical design features called Key …


Reducing Unwarranted Variation In Healthcare Service Delivery Systems: Key Issues, Research Challenges And Potential Solutions, Nagesh Shukla, Senevi Kiridena, Nishikant Mishra Apr 2015

Reducing Unwarranted Variation In Healthcare Service Delivery Systems: Key Issues, Research Challenges And Potential Solutions, Nagesh Shukla, Senevi Kiridena, Nishikant Mishra

Nagesh Shukla

There is a growing need worldwide to increase the quality and productivity of healthcare services delivery. To this end, analysing and reducing unwarranted variations in healthcare has attracted much attention in recent times. However, current modelling and simulation approaches to reduce unwarranted variations suffer from numerous limitations. Consequently, service improvement efforts have often failed to deliver expected results. This paper discusses the key issues associated with reducing unwarranted variations in hospital service delivery systems, and proposes a research framework that aims at overcoming these issues. In doing so, it highlights the need for: accurately and efficiently modelling complex service delivery …


Causes Of Variation Orders In The Egyptian Construction Industry: Classification, Ranking, And Mitigation, Amr Khaled El-Sadek Feb 2015

Causes Of Variation Orders In The Egyptian Construction Industry: Classification, Ranking, And Mitigation, Amr Khaled El-Sadek

Theses and Dissertations

Variations or change orders are inevitable in any construction project. They are defined as any change that happens in the scope of the project whether this change is an additional scope of work, omission, or even alteration. This thesis presents the causes of variation orders in Egypt. The literature review divides the causes into four main categories: owner related, contractor related, consultant related, and other causes. All the identified events were surveyed in a questionnaire given to top executives in the construction field in Egypt. The survey was distributed equally on clients, consultants, and contractors. The top 10 most important …


Geographical Variation And Correlates Of Tobacco Smoking, Second-Hand Smoke Exposure, Workplace Tobacco Prohibition, And Pro-Tobacco And Counter-Tobacco Advertising In Mainland China: A Cross-Sectional Study Of 98 058 Participants, Thomas E. Astell-Burt, Mei Zhang, Xiaoqi Feng, Limin Wang, Yichong Li, Andrew Page, Maigeng Zhou, Linhong Wang Jan 2015

Geographical Variation And Correlates Of Tobacco Smoking, Second-Hand Smoke Exposure, Workplace Tobacco Prohibition, And Pro-Tobacco And Counter-Tobacco Advertising In Mainland China: A Cross-Sectional Study Of 98 058 Participants, Thomas E. Astell-Burt, Mei Zhang, Xiaoqi Feng, Limin Wang, Yichong Li, Andrew Page, Maigeng Zhou, Linhong Wang

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at The Lancet-CAMS Health Summit, 30-31 October 2015, Beijing, China


Vivambc: Estimating Viral Sequence Variation In Complex Populations From Illumina Deep-Sequencing Data Using Model-Based Clustering, Bie M. P Verbist, Lieven Clement, Joke Reumers, Kim Thys, Alexander Vapirev, Willem Talloen, Yves Wetzels, Joris Meys, Jeroen Aerssens, Luc Bijnens, Olivier Thas Jan 2015

Vivambc: Estimating Viral Sequence Variation In Complex Populations From Illumina Deep-Sequencing Data Using Model-Based Clustering, Bie M. P Verbist, Lieven Clement, Joke Reumers, Kim Thys, Alexander Vapirev, Willem Talloen, Yves Wetzels, Joris Meys, Jeroen Aerssens, Luc Bijnens, Olivier Thas

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Background: Deep-sequencing allows for an in-depth characterization of sequence variation in complex populations. However, technology associated errors may impede a powerful assessment of low-frequency mutations. Fortunately, base calls are complemented with quality scores which are derived from a quadruplet of intensities, one channel for each nucleotide type for Illumina sequencing. The highest intensity of the four channels determines the base that is called. Mismatch bases can often be corrected by the second best base, i.e. the base with the second highest intensity in the quadruplet. A virus variant model-based clustering method, ViVaMBC, is presented that explores quality scores and second …


Spatiotemporal Variation In Diabetes Mortality In China: Multilevel Evidence From 2006 And 2012, Maigeng Zhou, Thomas Astell-Burt, Peng Yin, Xiaoqi Feng, Andrew Page, Yunning Liu, Jiangmei Liu, Yichong Li, Shiwei Liu, Limin Wang, Lijun Wang, Linhong Wang Jan 2015

Spatiotemporal Variation In Diabetes Mortality In China: Multilevel Evidence From 2006 And 2012, Maigeng Zhou, Thomas Astell-Burt, Peng Yin, Xiaoqi Feng, Andrew Page, Yunning Liu, Jiangmei Liu, Yichong Li, Shiwei Liu, Limin Wang, Lijun Wang, Linhong Wang

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: Despite previous studies reporting spatial in equality in diabetes prevalence across China, potential geographic variations in diabetes mortality have not been explored. Methods: Age and gender stratified annual diabetes mortality counts for 161 counties were extracted from the China Mortality Surveillance System and interrogated using multilevel negative binomial regression. Random slopes were used to investigate spatiotemporal variation and the proportion of variance explained was used to assess the relative importance of geographical region, urbanization, mean temperature, local diabetes prevalence, behavioral risk factors and relevant biomarkers. Results: Diabetes mortality tended to reduce between 2006 and 2012, though there appeared to …


Pathway Variation Analysis (Pva): Modelling And Simulations, Nagesh Shukla, Sudi Lahiri, Darek Ceglarek Jan 2015

Pathway Variation Analysis (Pva): Modelling And Simulations, Nagesh Shukla, Sudi Lahiri, Darek Ceglarek

SMART Infrastructure Facility - Papers

Maintaining a care pathway within a hospital to provide complex care to patients is associated with challenges related to variations from the pathway. This occurs due to ineffective decision-making processes, unclear process steps, the interactions, conflicting performance measures for speciality units, and the availability of resources. These variations from the care pathway or standard care delivery processes lead to longer patient waiting times and lower patient throughput. Traditional approaches to improve the pathway focus primarily on reducing variations within the care pathway such as bottlenecks or throughput within the pathway rather than examining variations from the care pathway. In this …


A Longitudinal Study Of Students' Reasoning About Variation In Distributions In An Introductory College Statistics Course, Rachel Marie Chaphalkar Jan 2015

A Longitudinal Study Of Students' Reasoning About Variation In Distributions In An Introductory College Statistics Course, Rachel Marie Chaphalkar

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Current curricular documents including the Common Core State Standards (2010) and the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (2005) have increased the need for students' understanding and reasoning about statistics at both the K-12 and college levels. In addition, an increasing number of students are taking the Advanced Placement Statistics Exam (College Board, 2011) or a college-level introductory statistics course (Scheaffer & Stasny, 2000). One of the main components for statistical thinking is consideration of variation (Wild & Pfannkuch, 1999). Previous studies have shown that students have misconceptions about variation (e.g. Reading, 2004; Torok & Watson, 1999) and …


A Variationist Approach To Code-Switching And Lexical Borrowing : The Case Of Limonese-Spanish Bilinguals In Puerto LimóN, Costa Rica, Ashley Laboda Jan 2015

A Variationist Approach To Code-Switching And Lexical Borrowing : The Case Of Limonese-Spanish Bilinguals In Puerto LimóN, Costa Rica, Ashley Laboda

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The current study aims to contribute to the body of research on variation in the speech of bilinguals in language contact situations, as well as the ongoing discussions of creoles in contact with languages other than their lexifiers. Bilingual production of lone lexical Spanish insertions and multiword Spanish insertions in otherwise Limonese Creole (Limonese) speech are analyzed, and both linguistic and extralinguistic factors are considered. Previous studies have measured lone word integration in bilingual corpora and have shown that lone lexical insertions are integrated into the recipient language as borrowings almost categorically regardless of frequency (nonce or more frequent than …


Pretérito Vs. Imperfecto: Variación En La Producción Lingüística De Los Mexicanos En El Sur De Luisiana., Jose Fernando Rojas Jan 2015

Pretérito Vs. Imperfecto: Variación En La Producción Lingüística De Los Mexicanos En El Sur De Luisiana., Jose Fernando Rojas

LSU Master's Theses

ABSTRACT This thesis addresses the linguistic production of Spanish preterit and imperfect in the Mexican community that reside at the south of the state of Louisiana. More precisely in Baton Rouge, Scott and Lafayette. Other literature have worked this topic noticing a variation while the past tense is used, among others are Silva-Corvalán (1994) noticed that the Mexican community in Los Ángeles, California uses the imperfect in preterit context with stative verbs. Montrul (2009), on the other hand, notices similar behavior in heritage speakers and Delgado-Díaz (2013) suggested that same behavior in the use of these forms can be seen …