Monitoring Costs Research Articles

Assessment of the information gain of several monitoring techniques for bridge structural examination

The examination of existing civil structures must be differentiated from designing new structures. To have sustainable and circular asset management, the behavior of these existing structures must be better understood to avoid unnecessary maintenance and replacements. Monitoring data collected through bridge load testing, structural health monitoring, and non-destructive tests may provide useful information that could significantly influence their structural-safety evaluations. Nonetheless, these monitoring techniques are often elaborate, and the monitoring costs may not always justify the benefits of the information gained. Additionally, it is challenging to quantify the expected information gain before monitoring, especially when combining several techniques. This paper proposes several definitions and metrics to quantify the information gained from monitoring data to better evaluate the benefits of monitoring techniques. A full-scale bridge case study in Switzerland is used to illustrate the information gain from multiple monitoring techniques. On this structure, static load tests, three years of strain monitoring, weigh-in-motion measurements, and non-destructive tests were performed between 2016 and 2019. The influence on structural-safety examination is evaluated for each combination of monitoring techniques. Results show that each technique provides unique information and the optimal combination depends on the selected definition of information gain. When data from monitoring techniques are combined, significant reserve capacity of the bridge is determined.

Preliminary Design and Research of Wearable Devices for Parkinson 's Disease

A typical neurodegenerative condition is Parkinson's disease. Since no medication therapy will halt the progression of the disease, patients will eventually lose the ability to function and live a normal life. Generally, the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease mainly depends on the patient's Electroencephalogram(EEG) combined with Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography(CT) images. The disadvantage is that the cost of monitoring and maintenance of testing equipment is relatively high. And large, expensive equipment such as MRI and CT cannot be transported over long distances. Now with the development of wearable technology, portable wearable helmets can be used to diagnose and monitor Parkinson's disease. In this paper, by combining the existing research results of microwave scanning and wireless sensor networks, the preliminary design and research on this wearable device that may appear in the future have been carried out. This device can meet the needs of Parkinson 's disease diagnosis in areas where medical equipment is underdeveloped, and can also meet the needs of daily monitoring of Parkinson 's patients.

КЛЮЧОВІ НАПРЯМКИ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ТА ДИЛЕМИ В СФЕРІ ПУБЛІЧНИХ ЗАКУПІВЕЛЬ: ТЕОРЕТИЧНИЙ ФРЕЙМ

The work summarizes scientific approaches to the phenomenon of public procurement from the positions of various schools and currents, analyzes the key dilemmas that arise in the process of functioning of the public procurement system of various countries of the world. It is well-founded that problems in the study of public procurement arise due to a number of factors: poor definition of the subject of public procurement, as its boundaries are “blurred” between many academic disciplines; the existence of a “gap” between academic works on the socio-economic consequences of public procurement and the framework sequence of their construction and execution procedure; insufficient interest in studying public procurement on the part of regional and local authorities. The analysis of public procurement research was carried out in several areas: 1) procurement selection methods; 2) attributes of goods and services; 3) participants’ experience; 4) decentralization of purchases; 5) accountability and transparency; 6) efficiency; 7) evaluation of procurement policy. The key dilemmas in the public procurement system are analyzed, among which the following are highlighted: 1) the accountability / responsibility dilemma: developing flexible procurement systems while maintaining accountability and control; 2) the fraud / red tape dilemma: limit the opportunity for fraud / mismanagement while reducing operational constraints; 3) the principle / agent dilemma: identifying “best value” in the presence of competing goals and common agency; 4) short-term / long-term cost dilemma: short-term economic efficiency vs. long-term monitoring costs; 5) the cost of empowerment dilemma: responsiveness to “end user” through decentralization while increasing training and evaluation costs. In the long term, reforms aimed at improving procedures and increasing the adaptive potential of the public procurement system are critically important

CSR, monitoring cost and firm performance during COVID-19: balancing organizational legitimacy and agency cost

PurposeCOVID-19 induced uncertainty in the firms’ business transactions, financial markets and product-market competition, causing a severe organizational legitimacy crisis. Using the organizational legitimacy perspective and agency theory, this paper aims to study the relationship between prior corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, monitoring cost (MC) and firm performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a quarterly panel (16,924 firm-quarter observations from 61 countries for CSR and 53,345 firm-quarter observations from 55 countries for MC) for 14 quarters from January 2018 to June 2021. This study uses panel fixed-effect regression models to estimate the effect of CSR activities and MC (measured as audit fees) on firm performance during the COVID-19 period.FindingsThis study finds a U-shaped relationship between CSR and firm performance. This relationship is strengthened during COVID-19. In contrast, this study finds an inverted U-shaped relationship between firm MC and firm performance. However, this relationship is weakened during the pandemic.Originality/valueThis study contributes to theory and practice on maintaining organizational legitimacy and reducing agency costs during the pandemic. This study shows that firms’ prior legitimacy-gaining practices, such as CSR activities and MC, provide an opportunity to increase firm value. To balance agency costs and legitimacy benefits, firm managers also need to identify the optimal level of CSR activities and MC.

Analyst Coverage and Corporate Environmental Policies

Abstract Exploiting two quasi-natural experiments, we find that firms increase emissions of toxic pollution following decreases in analyst coverage. The effects are stronger for firms with low initial analyst coverage, poor corporate governance, and firms subject to less stringent monitoring by environmental regulators. Decreases in environmental-related questions raised in conference calls, an increased cost of monitoring to institutional shareholders, reductions in pollution abatement investment, and the weakening of internal governance related to environmental performance are channels through which reduced analyst coverage contributes to increases in firm pollution. Our study highlights the monitoring role analysts play in shaping corporate environmental policies.

A Systematic Review of Optimization Algorithms for Structural Health Monitoring and Optimal Sensor Placement.

In recent decades, structural health monitoring (SHM) has gained increased importance for ensuring the sustainability and serviceability of large and complex structures. To design an SHM system that delivers optimal monitoring outcomes, engineers must make decisions on numerous system specifications, including the sensor types, numbers, and placements, as well as data transfer, storage, and data analysis techniques. Optimization algorithms are employed to optimize the system settings, such as the sensor configuration, that significantly impact the quality and information density of the captured data and, hence, the system performance. Optimal sensor placement (OSP) is defined as the placement of sensors that results in the least amount of monitoring cost while meeting predefined performance requirements. An optimization algorithm generally finds the "best available" values of an objective function, given a specific input (or domain). Various optimization algorithms, from random search to heuristic algorithms, have been developed by researchers for different SHM purposes, including OSP. This paper comprehensively reviews the most recent optimization algorithms for SHM and OSP. The article focuses on the following: (I) the definition of SHM and all its components, including sensor systems and damage detection methods, (II) the problem formulation of OSP and all current methods, (III) the introduction of optimization algorithms and their types, and (IV) how various existing optimization methodologies can be applied to SHM systems and OSP methods. Our comprehensive comparative review revealed that applying optimization algorithms in SHM systems, including their use for OSP, to derive an optimal solution, has become increasingly common and has resulted in the development of sophisticated methods tailored to SHM. This article also demonstrates that these sophisticated methods, using artificial intelligence (AI), are highly accurate and fast at solving complex problems.

Secured Loans and Risky Assets in a Monetary Economy

AbstractWe study the implication of secured credit with a default option for monetary equilibrium. The intermediary structure has the feature of costly state verification, with the monitoring cost interpreted as the cost of foreclosing assets once a default occurs. Without monitoring costs, uncertainty in asset payoffs does not matter for allocation. The asset price can exhibit a liquidity premium because more assets as collateral raises the borrower's credit limit. When there are monitoring costs, the asset's liquidity premium is strictly positive because pledging more assets reduces the default probability and thus the chance to incur monitoring costs. Under some circumstances, increased risk to dividends of the pledged asset may decrease the marginal borrowing cost to such an extent that bank lending rises, and higher default rates are accompanied by larger aggregate liquidity.

Introduction of a New Method to Monitor Patient-Relevant Outcomes and Costs: Using a Quality Improvement Project in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation Care as an Example.

Routine outcome monitoring is becoming standard in care evaluations, but costs are still underrepresented in these efforts. The primary aim of this study was therefore to assess if patient-relevant cost drivers can be used alongside clinical outcomes to evaluate an improvement project and to provide insight into (remaining) areas for improvement. Data from patients who underwent transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) between 2013 and 2018 at a single center in the Netherlands were used. A quality improvement strategy was implemented in October 2015, and pre- (A) and post-quality improvement cohorts (B) were distinguished. For each cohort, clinical outcomes, quality of life (QoL), and cost drivers were collected from the national cardiac registry and hospital registration data. The most appropriate cost drivers in TAVI care were selected from hospital registration data using a novel stepwise approach with an expert panel of physicians, managers, and patient representatives. A radar chart was used to visualize the clinical outcomes, QoL and the selected costs drivers. We included 81 patients in cohort A and 136 patients in cohort B. All-cause mortality at 30 days was borderline significantly lower in cohort B than in cohort A (1.5% vs 7.4%, P = .055). QoL improved after TAVI for both cohorts. The stepwise approach resulted in 21 patient-relevant cost drivers. Costs for pre-procedural outpatient clinic visits (€535, interquartile range [IQR] = 321-675, vs €650, IQR = 512-890, P < .001), costs for the procedure (€1354, IQR = 1236-1686, vs €1474, IQR = 1372-1620, P < .001), and imaging during admission (€318, IQR = 174-441, vs €329, IQR = 267-682, P = .002) were significantly lower in cohort B than in cohort A. Possible improvement potential was seen in 30-day pacemaker implantation and 120-day readmission. A selection of patient-relevant cost drivers is a valuable addition to clinical outcomes for use in evaluation of improvement projects and identification of room for further improvement.

Minimizing Data Waste: Conservation in the Big Data Era

Minimizing Data Waste: Conservation in the Big Data Era

Evaluating the cost-utility of intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin versus radical cystectomy in patients with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer in the UK

AimsApproximately 75% of bladder cancer (BC) cases present as non-muscle-invasive BC (NMIBC). In patients with high-risk NMIBC, the mainstay treatment is intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), with immediate radical cystectomy (RC) as an alternative treatment option. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the cost-utility of BCG versus RC in patients with high-risk NMIBC from the UK healthcare payer perspective.Materials and methodsA six-state Markov model was developed that covered controlled disease, recurrence, progression to muscle-invasive BC, metastatic disease, and death. The model included adverse events of BCG and RC and monitoring and palliative care. Drug costs were obtained from the British National Formulary. Intravesical delivery, RC, and monitoring costs were sourced from the National Tariff Payment System and the literature. Utility data were obtained from the literature. Analyses were run over a 30-year time horizon, with future costs and effects discounted at 3.5% per annum. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed.ResultsThe base case analysis comparing BCG with RC showed that BCG would increase life expectancy by 0.88 years versus RC, from 7.74 to 8.62 years. BCG resulted in an increase of 0.76 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) versus RC, from 5.63 to 6.39 QALYs. Patients incurred lower lifetime costs if treated with BCG (£47,753) than with RC (£64,264). Cost savings were mainly driven by the lower cost of BCG versus RC, and palliative care costs. Sensitivity analyses showed that results were robust to assumptions.LimitationsThe evidence base informing efficacy estimates of BCG is heterogeneous as different BCG administration schedules were reported in the literature, while incidence and cost data on some BCG-associated adverse events were sparse.ConclusionsIntravesical BCG led to increased QALYs and reduced costs versus RC for patients with high-risk NMIBC from the UK healthcare payer perspective.

The Right Purpose on the Right Covenant: Does the Loan Purpose Affect the Debt Covenant Through the Ṣukūk Rating?

Purpose — This paper aims to determine the influence of the purpose for issuing ṣukūk (operations, financing, and investment/acquisition) on different types of debt covenants (balance sheet, income statement, and collateral-based covenants). It also examines the ability of the ṣukūk rating to mediate the relationship between loan purposes and debt covenants. Design/Methodology/Approach — The research data were 236 ṣukūk that were listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) until December 2020. They were collected through the IDX official website. Logistic regression and the Sobel test were used to test the direct and indirect influences among the variables studied. Findings — The results showed that loan purposes affected the types of debt covenants. Loans for operational purposes seemed to be in accordance with the debt covenant with restrictions on income statement (IS), balance sheet (BS) and collateral. Loans for investment/acquisition were more appropriate to both BS and collateral-based debt covenants, while loans for financing were better suited to BS-based debt covenants. This study also proves that the ṣukūk rating could mediate associations between loan purposes, especially for investment/acquisition, and the types of debt covenants. Practical Implication — This research is useful for ṣukūk investors to consider the investment by looking at the purposes, ratings and ṣukūk covenants. In addition, it is helpful for ṣukūk holders, represented by trustees, in determining debt covenants in the form of ṣukūk with different purposes. Research Implication — The results of this study described how accounting information improved contract efficiency. This research provided important evidence of the association between the structure of debt covenants and loan purposes. It provided empirical evidence of the debt covenant hypothesis in agency theory on the importance of designing debt contracts to reduce monitoring costs. Originality/Value — This study employed the debt covenant on ṣukūk in Indonesia. The use of the ṣukūk rating as an intervening variable between loan purpose and debt covenant has not been studied previously. This study also divided debt covenant into four types by adding the collateral-based debt covenant because ṣukūk are different from other types of debt and require underlying assets in their issuance.

Has the Regulatory Compliance Burden Reduced Competitiveness of the U.S. Tilapia Industry?

Emerging research on aquaculture governance has pointed to the conundrum of negative global environmental effects from economic incentives for aquaculture production to shift from more highly regulated to less regulated countries. This study has focused on examining whether regulatory costs on U.S. tilapia farms may have contributed to their contraction in contrast to the growth of global tilapia production that contributes to the volume of seafood imports into the U.S. A national survey (coverage rate = 75% of tilapia sold; response rate = 18%) found that on-farm regulatory costs accounted for 15% of total production costs on U.S. tilapia farms, the fifth-highest cost of production. The total direct regulatory costs nationally were $4.4 million, averaging $137,611/farm. Most problematic were regulations of effluent discharge, predatory bird control, international export, and water and energy policies. Manpower costs for monitoring and reporting were the greatest cost of regulatory compliance. The lost sales revenue resulting from regulations was $32 million a year, or 82% of total annual sales, indicating that the regulatory framework has constrained the growth of U.S. tilapia farming. The smallest tilapia farms had the greatest regulatory cost per kg. This study provides evidence that regulatory costs, along with other challenges related to live fish markets, have contributed to the decline in U.S. tilapia production. Increased competitiveness of the U.S. tilapia industry will require a combination of: (1) improved regulatory efficiency that reduces on-farm cost burdens without reducing societal benefits; (2) research and on-farm extension assistance to evaluate new tilapia fillet equipment; and (3) research on changing consumer preferences to provide guidance on effective strategies to penetrate the large U.S. fillet market.

Abstract PD16-04: To monitor or not to monitor? MRI monitoring of neoadjuvant chemotherapy effect and its benefit on breast cancer patients’ pathological complete response rate

Abstract Introduction: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) represents an essential tool for the treatment of selected breast cancer patients aimed to reduce the tumor size for a more conservative resection and to gain early information about the sensitivity to applied treatment. An effective early response assessment helps both to change the therapeutic strategy for patients nonresponding to the treatment used and to avoid the toxicity related to ineffective treatment. We assumed that changing the chemotherapy regimen might avoid the residual cancer burden (RCB) III outcome and lead to the highest possible rate of pathological complete response (pCR) achieved. We examined the benefit of MRI as a preferred method for interim response assessment to NACT with a primary focus on the relation between the pattern of responses to NACT within the MRI- monitored and non-monitored patients and the pattern of final outcomes on the RCB scale. Methods We present a real-life data-based retrospective analysis of 124 female patients with locally advanced breast carcinoma. All patients received NACT (anthracycline-based regimen followed by taxane-based regimen/early switch to taxanes after the 2nd cycle in nonresponders, and antiHER2 therapy if indicated) prior to surgery (mastectomy/breast-conserving surgery, sentinel lymph node biopsy/axillary dissection). Postoperative histopathological analysis of tumor specimens categorised 120 patients according to the RCB scale 0 – III. Four patients had surgery ex muros and were lost to follow-up. Patients were divided into two cohorts. Group A covered monitored patients with pre-treatment MRI and follow-up MRI after the 2nd cycle of NACT. If no response was detected, another follow-up MRI was indicated after the 2nd cycle of a new treatment. Group B comprised patients with no/incomplete MRI monitoring and patients without the change of therapy even though no response was detected by MRI after the 2nd cycle of NACT. Association between categorical variables was tested using chi-square tests. Statistical analysis was performed using StatsDirect® 3.3.5 (StatsDirect Ltd., Cheshire, UK). The data analysis was supported by a grant from the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the Slovak Republic (KEGA 041UK-4/2020). Results MRI-monitored patients had two times the odds of being RBC 0 (OR = 2.02, P = 0.122) and almost three times the odds of being RCB 0 or RCB I (OR = 2.83, P = 0.0206) than patients with no monitoring. Changing the NACT after the 2nd cycle in the cohort of monitored patients with no response to initial therapy was significantly associated with better outcomes on the RCB scale (P = 0.0042). This result was confirmed by comparing the pattern of results in patients with no response within the group of incompletely monitored patients with known MRI results after the 2nd cycle (P = 0.0257). Changing the ineffective NACT after the 2nd cycle significantly increased the proportion of RCB 0-I by 23.4%, confirming the benefit of response monitoring by MRI. Conclusion Breast cancer constitutes a heterogeneity of tumor subtypes and it is acknowledged that their behaviour during NACT is highly variable and often unpredictable. MRI represents an effective tool for the assessment of tumor response to applied NACT. To achieve the most clinically meaningful impact of the selected treatment it is critical to monitor the tumor response within the first 3 cycles. Our data clearly confirmed that clinical decisions related to the detection of early response or no response (resulting in the change of NACT) lead to better treatment outcomes and less toxicity. The rate of pCR defines the applied treatment efficacy. Every single patient with results different from RCB III has a better prognosis, reduced need for further expensive treatment and also a more favourable quality of life. These key facts need to be carefully considered when discussing the cost and benefits of MRI monitoring. Citation Format: Lucia Vanovcanova, Iveta Waszulikova, Bibiana Vertakova Krakovska. To monitor or not to monitor? MRI monitoring of neoadjuvant chemotherapy effect and its benefit on breast cancer patients’ pathological complete response rate [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr PD16-04.

Energy-saving Service Offloading for the Internet of Medical Things Using Deep Reinforcement Learning

As a critical branch of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the medicine industry, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) significantly improves the quality of healthcare due to its real-time monitoring and low medical cost. Benefiting from edge and cloud computing, IoMT is provided with more computing and storage resources near the terminal to meet the low-delay requirements of computation-intensive services. However, the service offloading from health monitoring units (HMUs) to edge servers generates additional energy consumption. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI), which has developed rapidly in recent years, has proved effective in some resource allocation applications. Taking both energy consumption and delay into account, we propose an energy-aware service offloading algorithm under an end-edge-cloud collaborative IoMT system with Asynchronous Advantage Actor-critic (A3C), named ECAC. Technically, ECAC uses the structural similarity between the natural distributed IoMT system and A3C, whose parameters are asynchronously updated. Besides, due to the typical delay-sensitivity mechanism and time-energy correction, ECAC can adjust dynamically to the diverse service types and system requirements. Finally, the effectiveness of ECAC for IoMT is proved on real data.

IMon: Network Function Virtualisation Monitoring Based on a Unique Agent

As a key technology of 5G, NFV has attracted much attention. In addition, monitoring plays an important role, and can be widely used for virtual network function placement and resource optimisation. The existing monitoring methods focus on the monitoring load without considering they own resources needed. This raises a unique challenge: jointly optimising the NFV monitoring systems and minimising their monitoring load at runtime. The objective is to enhance the gain in real-time monitoring metrics at minimum monitoring costs. In this context, we propose a novel NFV monitoring solution, namely, iMon (Monitoring by inferring), that jointly optimises the monitoring process and reduces resource consumption. We formalise the monitoring process into a multitarget regression problem and propose three regression models. These models are implemented by a deep neural network, and an experimental platform is built to prove their availability and effectiveness. Finally, experiments also show that monitoring resource requirements are reduced, and the monitoring load is just 0.6% of that of the monitoring tool cAdvisor on our dataset.

Abstract P223: Estimated Health Benefits, Costs, and Cost-Effectiveness of Eliminating Industrial Trans-Fatty Acids in Nigeria

Objectives: To estimate the potential health gains, costs, and cost-effectiveness of a mandatory limit on industrial trans fatty acids (iTFA) in the Nigerian food supply. Methods: We used Markov cohort models to estimate the effect on ischemic heart disease (IHD) burden, costs, and cost-effectiveness of a mandatory iTFA-limit (≤2% of all fats) for foods in Nigeria. Data on demographics, IHD epidemiology, and trans-fatty acid intake were derived from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study. We calculated the IHD burden attributable to iTFA by comparing the current trans-fatty acid intake to counterfactual settings with complete elimination of iTFA intake. Policy implementation costs (including government costs for legislation and monitoring, and industry costs for product reformulation), avoided IHD events and deaths, health-adjusted life years (HALYs) gained, and healthcare costs saved were estimated over 10 years and lifetime of the Nigerian population. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios using net costs (i.e., implementation costs minus healthcare cost savings) and HALYs gained (both discounted at 3%) were used to assess cost-effectiveness. Results: Over the first 10 years, elimination of iTFA intake was estimated to prevent 9,996 (95% uncertainty interval: 8,870; 11,118): IHD deaths and 66,569 (58,862; 74,083) IHD events, and to save 90 million USD (78; 102) in total healthcare costs. The corresponding estimates over the lifetime were 259,934 (228,736; 290,191), 479,308 (95% UI: 420,472; 538,177), and ~518 (450; 587). Policy implementation costs (government plus industry) were estimated as 18 million USD (12; 25) over the first 10 years, and 27 million USD (20; 35) over the population lifetime. The intervention was estimated to be cost-saving. Findings were robust across several deterministic sensitivity analyses (Figure). Conclusions: Our findings support legislating a mandatory limit of iTFAs as a cost-saving strategy to avert substantial numbers of IHD events and deaths in Nigeria.

Stimulus-Responsive DNA Hydrogel Biosensors for Food Safety Detection.

Food safety has always been a major global challenge to human health and the effective detection of harmful substances in food can reduce the risk to human health. However, the food industry has been plagued by a lack of effective and sensitive safety monitoring methods due to the tension between the cost and effectiveness of monitoring. DNA-based hydrogels combine the advantages of biocompatibility, programmability, the molecular recognition of DNA molecules, and the hydrophilicity of hydrogels, making them a hotspot in the research field of new nanomaterials. The stimulus response property greatly broadens the function and application range of DNA hydrogel. In recent years, DNA hydrogels based on stimulus-responsive mechanisms have been widely applied in the field of biosensing for the detection of a variety of target substances, including various food contaminants. In this review, we describe the recent advances in the preparation of stimuli-responsive DNA hydrogels, highlighting the progress of its application in food safety detection. Finally, we also discuss the challenges and future application of stimulus-responsive DNA hydrogels.

Recognition of Abnormal Individuals Based on Lightweight Deep Learning Using Aerial Images in Complex Forest Landscapes: A Case Study of Pine Wood Nematode

Individuals with abnormalities are key drivers of subtle stress changes in forest ecosystems. Although remote sensing monitoring and deep learning have been developed for forest ecosystems, they are faced with the complexity of forest landscapes, multiple sources of remote sensing data, high monitoring costs, and complex terrain, which pose significant challenges to automatic identification. Therefore, taking pine nematode disease as an example, this paper proposes D-SCNet, an intelligent monitoring network for abnormal individuals applicable to UAV visible images. In this method, the convolutional block attention model and simplified dense block are introduced to enhance the semantic analysis ability of abnormal individual identification, use multi-level information of abnormal individuals well, enhance feature transfer as well as feature weights between network layers, and selectively focus on abnormal features of individuals while reducing feature redundancy and parameter and improving monitoring accuracy and efficiency. This method uses lightweight deep learning models through weak information sources to achieve rapid monitoring of a large range of abnormal individuals in complex environments. With the advantages of low cost, high efficiency, and simple data sources, it is expected to further enhance the practicality and universality of intelligent monitoring of anomalous individuals by UAV remote sensing.

Estimating the Potential Economic Impact of Tissue Valve Replacement for Heart Valve Disease in China: Patient-Level and Population-Level Cost-Benefit Simulation Analyses

ObjectivesThis study seeks to estimate the potential societal economic impact of treating patients with heart valve disease (HVD) in China with surgical tissue valve replacement versus mechanical valves. MethodsThis societal economic cost-benefit evaluation is based on an individual simulation model for subgroups of patients with HVD that is also aggregated to a macrosocietal model. The individual simulation model was developed to estimate the likely economic impact of surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) with tissue versus mechanical valves for different subgroups among all eligible patients with HVD over their remaining lifetimes. Clinical inputs were informed by health claims database analysis, expert clinical opinion, and published literature. Epidemiological inputs and demographic inputs were sourced from the published literature and the China Statistical Yearbook 2020. Health gains were valued at 3 times the average national income. ResultsProjected total lifetime economic gains were greater for patients receiving tissue valves. Costs were reported in 2021 US dollars. The average lifetime net economic gain for tissue valve patients was $51 736 (20.0% more than for mechanical valve patients). Increasing the use of tissue valves to 50% among all eligible patients with HVD would provide aggregate long-term economic gains of $167 billion during their remaining lifetimes. The economic gains from greater tissue valve use were due to avoiding anticoagulation monitoring costs, improved quality of life, and greater post-SAVR labor force participation. ConclusionIncreased use of tissue valves versus mechanical values in SAVR procedures in China would be likely to generate a substantial societal economic gain.

Time-and-materials or revenue-sharing? Implications of monitoring for software outsourcing contract

Monitoring is applied in time-and-materials and revenue-sharing contracts to address the issue of nonobservability of vendor's development effort in software outsourcing. We establish a stylized model to investigate the impacts of monitoring on the client's contract choice. Under the exogenous monitoring level, the client's contract choice depends on its bargaining power in the negotiation of revenue-sharing. Under the endogenous monitoring level, a time-and-materials contract becomes preferable. Although revenue-sharing contract incentivizes more vendor's effort, it also pushes the vendor to inflate the effort, leading to a higher monitoring level. Finally, the benefit of the stronger effort is dominated by the higher monitoring cost.