Information Feedback Loops Research Articles

Near Real-Time Responsive Flood Event Representation: An Open-Source Interactive Web Application Architecture

Abstract. The adoption of accessible Digital Twin technology in flood applications has been impeded by a notable lack of practical examples. Arguably, the most distinguishing feature of Digital Twin technology is the integration of near real-time data analytics through IoT sensor connectivity, which has remained underutilised in flood applications and therefore indicates a critical research gap. This project endeavoured to develop a comprehensive and replicable open-source architecture framework, specifically tailored for near real-time responsive flood event representation. The resultant interactive web application integrated near real-time river height and rain fall data streams and performed on-demand data analytics. Key results include the establishment of a back-end spatial database, a coupled physical city and digital space model, and a functional holistic front-end user interface. Additionally, this research aligned with the Gemini Principles by emphasising data interoperability and maintaining an information feedback loop. The study also aimed to configure near real-time IoT sensor connections, implement event triggers, and deliver interactive visualisations in an easily accessible format. The research addressed key questions surrounding the effective integration of IoT sensor data, identification of crucial flood indicators and parameters, and rapid quantification of flood event impacts. Ultimately, this research project demonstrates how Digital Twin technology can swiftly provide decision-makers with crucial insights during flood disaster events.

TOTEs and trauma 2: a rat maternal care and stress epigenetic schematic

PurposeThis conceptual article presents a schematic of rat maternal behavior and niche stress epigenetic effects as a case study that is then aligned with current evolutionary concepts, which raises new questions regarding immigrant assimilation and niche dynamics.Design/methodology/approachThe necessary background material for rat maternal and niche(s) stress factors are incorporated into a recursive, test-operate-test (rTOT), information-only-transfer, schematic (Patterson, 2023), which is an extension and refinement of the test-operate-test-exit (TOTE) schematic of Miller et al. (1960).FindingsThe generated epigenetic rTOT demonstrates the fundamental evolutionary unit of the flexible organism within its niche(s). The rTOT also confirms that epigenetic processes, epigenetic inheritance and phenotype plasticity are significant conceptual tools for understanding evolution. The teleology of rat adaptations for niche fitness via maternal behavior has been demonstrated. Sterling's (2011) allostasis, or predictive homeostasis, is extended to include species-niche(s) interaction(s) that are governed by recursive information feedback loops that function via self-organized criticality (SOC) for species and niche(s). Use of a rat model for biosocial issues in humans is strengthened.Research limitations/implicationsEpigenetic rTOT only covers the species side of the evolutionary unit. Niche(s) require(s) a separate rTOT schematic. The information modeled does not include the entire system producing epigenetic effects but models a substantial portion of it.Practical implicationsEpigenetic rTOT demonstrates the utility of phenotypic plasticity, epigenetics and epigenetic inheritance as explanations for inheritable behavior patterns. rTOT is a useful computational model for evolutionary issues. The issues involved in niche modeling using an rTOT schematic are briefly reviewed.Social implicationsWhen the demonstrated epigenetic model of rat genetics and inherited behavior are applied to the issues of immigrant enclaves, epigenetic complications for the difficulties of assimilation into the culture within which the enclaves are embedded become apparent. However, the questions raised must be addressed with extreme care to avoid cultural imperialism. Such cultural issues must be modeled with an rTOT application that covers the materials involved. The limitations of human Learning III restrictions when attempting to model Learning IV issues are addressed. Research into the means by which abuse and trauma are maintained by epigenetic means is urgently needed.Originality/valueThe rTOT schematic visualizes rat maternal behavior and stress epigenetic effects that produce inheritable behavior patterns, which answers Jablonka's (2017) request for new computational modeling representations. The concept of allostasis, or predictive homeostasis, (Sterling, 2011) is extended to the niche(s) of the organism under study so that allostasis becomes a fully cybernetic concept governed by SOC for both the organism and its niche(s). This new case study confirmed evolutionary effects of epigenetics, epigenetic inheritance and phenotypic plasticity. Niche control of organism evolution is presented. Epigenetic applications for immigrant assimilation issues have been suggested and niche dynamic questions have been raised.

A framework for designing AI systems that support community wellbeing.

Designing artificial intelligence (AI) to support health and wellbeing is an important and broad challenge for technologists, designers, and policymakers. Drawing upon theories of AI and cybernetics, this article offers a design framework for designing intelligent systems to optimize human wellbeing. We focus on the production of wellbeing information feedback loops in complex community settings, and discuss the case study of My Wellness Check, an intelligent system designed to support the mental health and wellbeing needs of university students and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. The basis for our discussion is the community-led design of My Wellness Check, an intelligent system that supported the mental health and wellbeing needs of university students and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our system was designed to create an intelligent feedback loop to assess community wellbeing needs and to inform community action. This article provides an overview of our longitudinal assessment of students and staff wellbeing (n = 20,311) across two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We further share the results of a controlled experiment (n = 1,719) demonstrating the enhanced sensitivity and user experience of our context-sensitive wellbeing assessment. Our approach to designing "AI for community wellbeing," may generalize to the systematic improvement of human wellbeing in other human-computer systems for large-scale governance (e.g., schools, businesses, NGOs, platforms). The two main contributions are: 1) showcasing a simple way to draw from AI theory to produce more intelligent human systems, and 2) introducing a human-centered, community-led approach that may be beneficial to the field of AI.

Building a European Partnership for next generation, systems‐based Environmental Risk Assessment (PERA)

The European Partnership for next generation, systems-based Environmental Risk Assessment (PERA) is a strategic initiative launched by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This initiative is in response to the recognition that the current ERA paradigm has “fallen out of step with scientific knowledge and progress” and the new policy and societal ambitions e.g. the EU Green Deal strategy to better safeguard the environment. As part of the initiative, EFSA commissioned the development of a roadmap to facilitate a transition to an integrated and cross-sectoral environmental risk assessment (ERA) approach. The PERA systems-based approach aims to connect relevant partners from various sectors across regulatory silos, promotes and facilitates the sharing of data and expertise, and improves efficiency and transparency of the risk assessment process. In this External Scientific Report, we present the PERA roadmap that comprises of a problem description (current state), a vision (future state) and a series of steps to move towards the vision (transition process). The PERA roadmap was developed after extensive desk research and multiple stakeholder interviews, that were used to identify partners, areas needing further development, challenges, blockers and collaboration opportunities. We designed a vision for next generation ERAs, initially focused on pesticides, based on the ideas of stakeholders and accounting for the identified strengths and weaknesses of the current ERA system. Workshops were held during which stakeholders were invited to comment on these draft concepts providing valuable feedback for further revision. The PERA vision is a visual framework for systems-based ERA, with a concentric circle model. Its core circle builds upon and strengthens current ERA processes by focusing on pesticide specific aspects useful for comparability and decreasing the assessment complexity of pesticides. The inner core circle is surrounded by a supportive circle of landscape scale ERA, that addresses ecosystems properties of generic relevance for all pesticides. These two ERA circles are in turn connected to surrounding circles representing the agricultural, ecological and production systems as well as the political, economic and social systems. To fully optimize the process these circles need to be interconnected with information feed-back loops. The vision and roadmap were designed to incorporate the strengths, knowledge and expertise of the current state into a new holistically framed systems-based ERA. Strategies for transition, as well as concrete projects to spark the transition process are proposed and include concrete and tangible steps in a holistic direction within the current regulatory framework.

Terra: A Smart and Sensible Digital Twin Framework for Robust Robot Deployment in Challenging Environments

Digital twin (DT) systems that replicate the physical world digitally are powerful tools for monitoring physical systems and evaluating algorithms, but current DT systems are commonly not applicable for robotic deployment and investigation. Meanwhile, current 3-D simulation-based robotic platforms do not model the dynamics of the physical world on-the-fly as done in DT systems, limiting their potential for the development of robotics in challenging environments. To tackle this issue, we propose the first robot-centered smart DT framework, namely, Terra, to facilitate the deployment of robots in challenging environments. The proposed Terra framework introduces a comprehensive DT representation to encode the useful real-time dynamics of both the physical world and the robot agent deployed therein. A multiview multimodality perception module is further devised for Terra to obtain high-level semantics and deliver a precise description of the current status of the environment and the robot agent. By mapping the perceived results to the virtual replica of the physical environment, Terra actively updates the action policy and sends it back to the agent, forming an integral and real-time information feedback loop. In practice, to help demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed framework, we deliberately set up a challenging unordered physical environment with many obstacles and a very simple robot aiming to fulfill a navigation task. Empirical results show that the proposed Terra framework successfully facilitates the robot to accomplish the task without causing hazards.

Multi-Task Collaboration Deep Learning Framework for Infrared Precipitation Estimation

Infrared observation is an all-weather, real-time, large-scale precipitation observation method with high spatio-temporal resolution. A high-precision deep learning algorithm of infrared precipitation estimation can provide powerful data support for precipitation nowcasting and other hydrological studies with high timeliness requirements. The “classification-estimation” two-stage framework is widely used for balancing the data distribution in precipitation estimation algorithms, but still has the error accumulation issue due to its simple series-wound combination mode. In this paper, we propose a multi-task collaboration framework (MTCF), i.e., a novel combination mode of the classification and estimation model, which alleviates the error accumulation and retains the ability to improve the data balance. Specifically, we design a novel positive information feedback loop composed of a consistency constraint mechanism, which largely improves the information abundance and the prediction accuracy of the classification branch, and a cross-branch interaction module (CBIM), which realizes the soft feature transformation between branches via the soft spatial attention mechanism. In addition, we also model and analyze the importance of the input infrared bands, which lay a foundation for further optimizing the input and improving the generalization of the model on other infrared data. Extensive experiments based on Himawari-8 demonstrate that compared with the baseline model, our MTCF obtains a significant improvement by 3.2%, 3.71%, 5.13%, 4.04% in F1-score when the precipitation intensity is 0.5, 2, 5, 10 mm/h, respectively. Moreover, it also has a satisfactory performance in identifying precipitation spatial distribution details and small-scale precipitation, and strong stability to the extreme-precipitation of typhoons.

Multidimensional Construction Planning and Agile Organized Project Execution—The 5D-PROMPT Method

Although tremendous technological and strategic advances have been developed and implemented in the construction sector in recent years, there is substantial room for improvement in the areas of productivity growth, project performance, and schedule reliability. Thus, the present paper seeks to discover why the currently applied scheduling tools and the latest agile-based project organization approaches have not yet achieved their full potential. A missing interlinkage between the project’s design, cost, and time aspects within the project design phase and its sparse utilization throughout project execution were indicated as the driving contributors responsible for the slow progress in development. To fundamentally change this situation, an extensive and coherent project organization solution is proposed. The key process of this solution utilizes a 5D Building Information Model comprising tight concatenations between the individual model objects and the corresponding construction cost and time effort values. The key dates of a waterfall-based construction process simulation, set during the project planning phase, provide particular information to create a structure for agile organized project execution. The implementation of information feedback loops allows target/actual comparisons and contributes to continual improvements in future planning. A comparative case study was conducted with auspicious results on improvements in the overall project performance, and schedule and cost reliability.

Compliance by Fire Alarm: Regulatory Oversight Through Information Feedback Loops

This article contributes to the growing body of compliance law theory and scholarship. It does so by introducing a new and third approach to compliance called the fire alarm approach. This approach is grounded in the theoretical perspectives of negotiated governance and director primacy. It also contrasts but complements two other well-known compliance approaches discussed by scholars; the policing and architectural approaches. The fire alarm approach is executed throughout the compliance system that includes regulators, firms, executives, and third-party relationships. A virtue of the fire alarm approach is that it helps reduce agency costs by increasing transparency and information flows across the various system elements. This is achieved through what are called information feedback loops. These information flows, or feedback loops, reduce agency costs that lead to opportunism, shirking of duties and conflicts of interest. This in turn, promotes the goals of regulation that are designed to ensure trust in the marketplace and the protection and integrity of public welfare, health and safety. Part I discusses the fundamental problem of compliance as an agency cost problem related to information asymmetries. This part will examine how each subsystem within the compliance system generates its own unique set of agency costs. Information feedback loops are necessary to address the significant information asymmetries created by the various principal-agent relationships that inure within the compliance system. Part II discusses the policing and architectural compliance approaches. These two approaches are vital yet fail to capture the entire portrait of effective compliance. Part III introduces the fire alarm approach to compliance that has been neglected in the scholarly literature. Part IV describes information loops and provides a list of examples that can reduce agency costs and improve the compliance system. Part V discusses various theoretical, normative and policy implications that flow from this analysis.

Expectations of reciprocity when competitors share information: Experimental evidence

Informal exchange of information among competitors has been well-documented in a variety of industries. We use an indeterminate horizon centipede game to establish an information feedback loop in the laboratory and show that an individual’s beliefs about the recipient’s intentions to reciprocate matter more than a recipient’s ability to do so. This implies that reducing strategic uncertainty about a competitor’s behavior has a stronger effect on information flows than reducing environmental uncertainty (about the competitor’s ability). We further show how a players’ experience within, and across, episodes of information exchange drives beliefs about competitors’ behavior. We conclude by discussing managerial implications.

Closed Loop Feedback Mechanism Effect Pilot Investigation on Manual Assembly Time and Process Variation

Increasing customer demand for individualized and cost-effective products within shorter production times is reshaping the manufacturing and production environment. Human workers and machines must be able to react to changes with increased flexibility and efficiency. To meet these needs, the tools and products of modern assembly have continually updated and changed, but much work remains to incorporate the natural intelligence of an assembly worker more deeply into future assembly system information flow, both to and from the worker (feedback loop). This work presents a pilot lab evaluation of varied real-time feedback mechanisms for human workers on manual assembly processes to understand better how the method of the information feedback loop to the assembly associate affects their assembly time, variance, and accuracy as well as their perceived acceptance of each mechanism for information feedback. Lego building block models were used as the assembly product to build while wearing a wireless feedback mechanism device. The device incorporated LED lights, vibration, a text screen, and an image screen to provide feedback to the worker. All feedback was provided by an administrator who was able to send commands to the respective feedback methods as needed. Early conclusions in the pilot show a difference in the assembly time depending on both the feedback mechanism used and the complexity of the assembled model. Future work will include expanding the number of participants per test case and increasing the number and types of feedback provided to include non-wearable types such as stationary monitors and sound.

Simulating Water Resource Disputes of Transboundary River: A Case Study of the Zhanghe River Basin, China

Water resource disputes within transboundary river basin has been hindering the sustainable use of water resources and efficient management of environment. The problem is characterized by a complex information feedback loop that involves socio-economic and environmental systems. This paper presents a system dynamics based model that can simulate the dynamics of water demand, water supply, water adequacy and water allocation instability within a river basin. It was used for a case study in the Zhanghe River basin of China. The base scenario has been investigated for the time period between 2000 and 2050. The result shows that the Chinese national government should change the water allocation scheme of downstream Zhanghe River established in 1989, more water need to be allocated to the downstream cities and the actual allocation should be adjusted to reflect the need associated with the socio-economic and environmental changes within the region, and system dynamics improves the understanding of concepts and system interactions by offering a comprehensive and integrated view of the physical, social, economic, environmental, and political systems.

Assessment of USDA-NRCS rangeland conservation programs: recommendation for an evidence-based conservation platform.

The Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) was created in response to a request from the Office of Management and Budget that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) document the societal benefits anticipated to accrue from a major increase in conservation funding authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill. A comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy of rangeland conservation practices cost-shared with private landowners was unable to evaluate conservation benefits because outcomes were seldom documented. Four interrelated suppositions are presented to examine the causes underlying minimal documentation of conservations outcomes. These suppositions are (1) the benefits of conservation practices are considered a certainty so that documentation in not required, (2) there is minimal knowledge exchange between the USDA-NRCS andresearch organizations, (3) and a paucity of conservation-relevant science, as well as (4)inadequate technical support for land owners following implementation of conservation practices. We then follow with recommendations to overcome potential barriers to documentation of conservation outcomes identified for each supposition. Collectively, this assessment indicates that the existing conservation practice standards are insufficient to effectively administer large conservation investments on rangelands and that modification of these standards alone will not achieve the goals explicitly stated by CEAP. We recommend that USDA-NRCS modify its conservation programs around a more comprehensive and integrative platform that is capable of implementing evidence-based conservation. Collaborative monitoring organized around landowner-agency-scientist partnerships would represent the focal point of a Conservation Program Assessment Network (CPAN). The primary network objective would be to establish missing information feedback loops between conservation practices and their agricultural and environmental outcomes to promote learning, adaptive management, and innovation. Network information would be archived and made available to guide other, related conservation programs in relevant ecoregions. Restructuring conservation programs as we recommend would (1) provide site specific information, learning, and accountability that has been requested by CEAP and (2) further advance balanced delivery of agricultural production and environmental quality goals.

The US Food and Drug Administration and the Future of Cardiovascular Medicine

Cardiovascular medicine has led the drive for creativity and innovation with a culture that has been at the forefront of evidence generation. However, we are functioning at only a fraction of our evidence generation capacity. Despite the leadership of cardiovascular medicine, very few guideline recommendations are supported by high levels of evidence, and the proportion of recommendations for which there is no conclusive evidence is substantial. Clinical research has proven to be too slow, unreliable, and expensive as conducted in the past. In the current era, a new model of unlimited information, better access to care, and better payer coverage has the potential to change our evidence base to support clinical guidelines. We now have the opportunity to use volumes of data to support US Food and Drug Administration labeling and practice guidelines. The electronic health record can be used to feed decisions and provide an information feedback loop. In addition, learning health systems can contribute to providing networks and registries for information sharing. In this Special Communication, we summarize opportunities of the cardiovascular community to build on its pioneering leadership in evidence-based medicine through major initiatives now under way. By joining in broad efforts to create an efficient national evidence generation system, larger proportions of clinical practice can be guided by high-quality evidence; clinicians and their practice organizations will be increasingly able to focus on interpreting, applying, and communicating research findings to improve outcomes; and patients and consumers will be increasingly informed and empowered to play active roles in managing their own health and health care.

The Diabetes Telephone Study: Design and challenges of a pragmatic cluster randomized trial to improve diabetic peripheral neuropathy treatment.

Challenges to effective pharmacologic management of symptomatic diabetic peripheral neuropathy include the limited effectiveness of available medicines, frequent side effects, and the need for ongoing symptom assessment and treatment titration for maximal effectiveness. We present here the rationale and implementation challenges of the Diabetes Telephone Study, a randomized trial designed to improve medication treatment, titration, and quality of life among patients with symptomatic diabetic peripheral neuropathy. We implemented a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of an automated interactive voice response tool designed to provide physicians with real-time patient-reported data about responses to newly prescribed diabetic peripheral neuropathy medicines. A total of 1834 primary care physicians treating patients in the diabetes registry at Kaiser Permanente Northern California were randomized into the intervention or control arm. In September 2014, we began identification and recruitment of patients assigned to physicians in the intervention group who receive three brief interactive calls every 2 months after a medication is prescribed to alleviate diabetic peripheral neuropathy symptoms. These calls provide patients with the opportunity to report on symptoms, side effects, self-titration of medication dose and overall satisfaction with treatment. We plan to compare changes in self-reported quality of life between the intervention group and patients in the control group who receive three non-interactive automated educational phone calls. Successful implementation of this clinical trial required robust stakeholder engagement to help tailor the intervention and to address pragmatic concerns such as provider time constraints. As of 27 October 2015, we had screened 2078 patients, 1447 of whom were eligible for participation. We consented and enrolled 1206 or 83% of those eligible. Among those enrolled, 53% are women and the mean age is 67 (standard deviation = 12) years. The racial ethnic make-up is 56% White, 8% Asian, 13% Black or African American, and 19% Hispanic or Latino. Innovative strategies are needed to guide improvements in healthcare delivery for patients with symptomatic diabetic peripheral neuropathy. This trial aims to assess whether real-time collection and clinical feedback of patient treatment experiences can reduce patient symptom burden. Implementation of a clinical trial closely involving clinical care required researchers to partner with clinicians. If successful, this intervention provides a critical information feedback loop that would optimize diabetic peripheral neuropathy medication titration through widely available interactive voice response technology.

Experiences with a voluntary surveillance system for early detection of equine diseases in Switzerland.

Clinical observations made by practitioners and reported using web- and mobile-based technologies may benefit disease surveillance by improving the timeliness of outbreak detection. Equinella is a voluntary electronic reporting and information system established for the early detection of infectious equine diseases in Switzerland. Sentinel veterinary practitioners have been able to report cases of non-notifiable diseases and clinical symptoms to an internet-based platform since November 2013. Telephone interviews were carried out during the first year to understand the motivating and constraining factors affecting voluntary reporting and the use of mobile devices in a sentinel network. We found that non-monetary incentives attract sentinel practitioners; however, insufficient understanding of the reporting system and of its relevance, as well as concerns over the electronic dissemination of health data were identified as potential challenges to sustainable reporting. Many practitioners are not yet aware of the advantages of mobile-based surveillance and may require some time to become accustomed to novel reporting methods. Finally, our study highlights the need for continued information feedback loops within voluntary sentinel networks.

Integrating Health Information Technology to Achieve Seamless Care Transitions

Improving care transitions, or "handoffs" as patients migrate from one care setting to another, is a priority across stakeholder groups and health-care settings and additionally is included in national health-care goals set forth in the National Quality Strategy. Although many demonstrations of improved care transitions have succeeded, particularly for hospital discharges, ensuring consistent, high-quality, and safe transitions of care remains challenging. This paper highlights the potential for health information technology to become an increasing part of effective transitional care interventions, with the potential to reduce the resource burden currently associated with effective care transitions, the ability to spread improved practices to larger numbers of patients and providers efficiently and at scale, and, as health technology interoperability increases, the potential to facilitate critical information flow and feedback loops to clinicians, patients, and caregivers across disparate information systems and care settings.

ProSAVANA and the Expanding Scope of Accountability in Brazil's Development Cooperation

AbstractAs Brazil becomes a visible player in international development, questions about accountability resonate loudly amidst wider scrutiny of the country's cooperation programme. This article takes the case of Brazil's flagship ProSAVANA programme in Mozambique to analyse changing accountability practices in Brazilian development cooperation. It documents the emergence of a transnational civil society movement contesting ProSAVANA, and analyses the interaction of this transnational movement with evolving domestic political contests surrounding Brazilian cooperation. This transnational mobilisation exposed weaknesses in Brazilian cooperation regarding transparency of action and lines of responsibility – contributing to shifts in both understanding and practices of accountability within Brazil. Campaigners called for the Brazilian government to accept greater responsibility vis‐à‐vis Mozambican constituents, and established direct lines of interaction between Mozambican and Brazilian civil society actors. To some extent, these links have enabled ProSAVANA target populations to communicate their preferences to Brazilian taxpayers, who can then call the Brazilian government directly to account. Such domestic‐transnational accountability interfaces can contribute to tackling ‘broken information feedback loops’ between donors and affected populations. However, the enduring significance of such changes will depend on the ability of emerging accountability practices to connect a broader range of stakeholders, both in Brazil and in Mozambique, and to establish constructive dialogue among competing visions and interests.

A failure to communicate: a qualitative exploration of care coordination between hospitalists and primary care providers around patient hospitalizations.

Care coordination between adult hospitalists and primary care providers (PCPs) is a critical component of successful transitions of care from hospital to home, yet one that is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to understand the challenges in coordination of care, as well as potential solutions, from the perspective of hospitalists and PCPs in North Carolina. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study with 58 clinicians in four hospitalist focus groups (n = 32), three PCP focus groups (n = 19), and one hybrid group with both hospitalists and PCPs (n = 7). Interview guides included questions about care coordination, information exchange, follow-up care, accountability, and medication management. Focus group sessions were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed in ATLAS.ti. The constant comparative method was used to evaluate differences between hospitalists and PCPs. Hospitalists and PCPs were found to encounter similar care coordination challenges, including (1) lack of time, (2) difficulty reaching other clinicians, (3) lack of personal relationships with other clinicians, (4) lack of information feedback loops, (5) medication list discrepancies, and (6) lack of clarity regarding accountability for pending tests and home health. Hospitalists additionally noted difficulty obtaining timely follow-up appointments for after-hours or weekend discharges. PCPs additionally noted (1) not knowing when patients were hospitalized, (2) not having hospital records for post-hospitalization appointments, (3) difficulty locating important information in discharge summaries, and (4) feeling undervalued when hospitalists made medication changes without involving PCPs. Hospitalists and PCPs identified common themes of successful care coordination as (1) greater efforts to coordinate care for "high-risk" patients, (2) improved direct telephone access to each other, (3) improved information exchange through shared electronic medical records, (4) enhanced interpersonal relationships, and (5) clearly defined accountability. Hospitalists and PCPs encounter similar challenges in care coordination, yet have important experiential differences related to sending and receiving roles for hospital discharges. Efforts to improve coordination of care between hospitalists and PCPs should aim to understand perspectives of clinicians in each setting.

온대활엽수림 생태수문계의 과정망: 복잡계 관점

From a complex systems perspective, ecohydrological systems in forests may be characterized with (1) large networks of components which give rise to complex collective behaviors, (2) sophisticated information processing, and (3) adaptation through self-organization and learning processes. In order to demonstrate such characteristics, we applied the recently proposed ‘process networks’ approach to a temperate deciduous forest in Gwangneung National Arboretum in Korea. The process network analysis clearly delineated the forest ecohydrological systems as the hierarchical networks of information flows and feedback loops with various time scales among different variables. Several subsystems were identified such as synoptic subsystem (SS), atmospheric boundary layer subsystem (ABLS), biophysical subsystem (BPS), and biophysicochemical subsystem (BPCS). These subsystems were assembled/disassembled through the couplings/decouplings of feedback loops to form/deform newly aggregated subsystems (e.g., regional subsystem) - an evidence for self-organizing processes of a complex system. Our results imply that, despite natural and human disturbances, ecosystems grow and develop through self-organization while maintaining dynamic equilibrium, thereby continuously adapting to environmental changes. Ecosystem integrity is preserved when the system’s selforganizing processes are preserved, something that happens naturally if we maintain the context for self-organization. From this perspective, the process networks approach makes sense.

Optimal Parallel Controllers and Filters for a Class of Second-Order Linear Dynamic Systems

Matrix second-order damped linear dynamic systems are frequently encountered in mechanical, structural, electrical, civil, and aerospace engineering. This class of systems also comes from the distributed parameter dynamic systems (systems described by partial differential equations) when they are approximated by linear dynamic systems. In this paper, we show how to design, for this class of systems, the globally optimal linear-quadratic controller and the globally optimal Kalman filter in terms of locally optimal linear-quadratic controllers and locally optimal scalar second-order Kalman filters. This simplifies computational requirements and allows full parallelism in information processing and feedback loop implementation. Conditions are established under which the presented procedure is applicable. Examples are included to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed technique.