Reliable Assessment System Research Articles

A Novel Global Probabilistic Fuzzy System for Occupa-tional Risk Assessment (GPFSORA)

Occupational risk assessment is the process of estimating the magnitude of risks that cannot be avoided. Then, the corresponding assessment is carried out, using comparative tables with different evaluation methods. Current risk assessment techniques enable the individual assessment of each potential risk, but there is no method to globally assess potential risks in an organization. The motivation of this research was to develop an objective and quantitative risk assessment system through a diffuse probabilistic model integrating stochastic and non-stochastic uncertainty. To this effect, an empirical collective record was used, whose attribute of interest was the occurrence of different accident types over a period of 52 weeks. Here, each of the collectives represented a linguistic input variable. In the probabilistic fuzzification stage, the frequentist probability of the occurrence of accidents was determined. One of our most important contributions to probabilistic fuzzy systems lies in our classification of language labels based on the linguistic projection of frequentist probabilities via a projection membership function determined by experts. The use of the total probability theorem in the implication stage is also proposed. The output of the system determines the type of risk, its evaluation, and the probability of its occurrence, vital factors to be considered in prevention work. The system’s stages are explicitly described and applied to real data corresponding to construction materials distribution company. One of the relevant conclusions of this research is that the integration of stochastic and imprecise uncertainty allows for a more reliable risk assessment system.

Efficient Paddy Grain Quality Assessment Approach Utilizing Affordable Sensors

Efficient Paddy Grain Quality Assessment Approach Utilizing Affordable Sensors

A Study of Insurance Company Underwriting Risk Based on EWM and TOPSIS Methods

This study proposes a risk assessment model called CPSF, which aims to assess insurance risk in areas where extreme weather is frequent. The model adopts a multidimensional and comprehensive assessment system, considering climate change, demographic and socio-economic, and financial conditions as the main factors, and constructs corresponding assessment indicators. The study establishes a scientific and reliable risk assessment system through the steps of data source, data pre-processing, indicator establishment, weight determination, and comprehensive assessment. By applying the model to two regions, namely, Southeast China and Southeast United States, where extreme weather often occurs, the insurance risk situation of these regions is analyzed and the future trend is predicted, which provides an important reference for insurance companies and policy making.

Modification of Domestic Animal Lameness Scales for Use in Asiatic Black Bears (Ursus thibetanus)

Lameness in animals is a welfare concern as it can be an indicator of pain. A standardized bear lameness scale would significantly improve the ability of facilities that house bears to monitor, manage, and treat lameness in their animals. The Animals Asia bear rescue center in Vietnam holds over 180 rescued bears with varying health and mobility conditions as a result of the illegal bear bile trade, and a reliable lameness assessment system was needed. Bear locomotion includes a lumbering gait, which differs from domestic animal locomotion, necessitating the modification of domestic animal lameness scales, and a five-point lameness scale was developed. Professionals from various veterinary-related backgrounds scored bear lameness videos to assess interobserver reliability and the intraclass correlation coefficient indicated good to excellent reliability. A 15-min training video with examples of lameness and grades was provided before assessment. The lameness scale developed herein addresses the lack of a published lameness scale for bears, and, due to the similar locomotion of the genus, can be used on any bear species. This scale is a consistent and reliable tool for evaluating and documenting lameness in addition to monitoring response to treatment. It will benefit bear welfare by indirectly characterizing the level of pain a bear is experiencing due to lameness as well as serving to document trends in pain status.

Predictive Value of Cardiovascular Health Score for Health Outcomes in Patients with PCI: Comparison between Life's Simple 7 and Life's Essential 8.

The American Heart Association recently published an updated algorithm for quantitative assessments of cardiovascular health (CVH) metrics, namely Life's Essential 8 (LE8). This study aimed to compare the predictive value between Life's Simple 7 (LS7) and LE8 and predict the likelihood of major adverse cardiac events (MACEs) in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to determine the utility of the LE8 in predicting CVH outcomes. A total of 339 patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who had undergone PCI were enrolled to assess the CVH scores using the LS7 and LE8. Multivariable Cox regression analysis was employed to evaluate the predictive value of the two different CVH scoring systems at 2 years for MACEs. Multivariable Cox regression analysis revealed that both the LS7 and LE8 scores were protective factors for MACEs (HR = 0.857, [95%CI: 0.78-0.94], HR = 0.964, [95%CI: 0.95-0.98]; p < 0.05, respectively). Receiver operator characteristic analysis indicated that the area under the curve (AUC) of LE8 was higher than that of LS7 (AUC: 0.662 vs. 0.615, p < 0.05). Lastly, in the LE8 score, diet, sleep health, serum glucose levels, nicotine exposure, and physical activity were found to be correlated with MACEs (HR = 0.985, 0.988, 0.993, 0.994, 0.994, respectively). Our study established that LE8 is a more reliable assessment system for CVH. This population-based prospective study reports that an unfavorable cardiovascular health profile is associated with MACEs. Future research is warranted to evaluate the effectiveness of optimizing diet, sleep health, serum glucose levels, nicotine exposure, and physical activity in reducing the risk of MACEs. In conclusion, our findings corroborated the predictive value of Life's Essential 8 and provided further evidence for the association between CVH and the risk of MACEs.

Indications and outcomes of endoscopic resection for non-pedunculated colorectal lesions: A narrative review.

In the last years, endoscopic techniques gained a crucial role in the treatment of colorectal flat lesions. At the same time, the importance of a reliable assessment of such lesions to predict the malignancy and the depth of invasion of the colonic wall emerged. The current unsolved dilemma about the endoscopic excision techniques concerns the necessity of a reliable submucosal invasive cancer assessment system that can stratify the risk of the post-procedural need for surgery. Accordingly, this narrative literature review aims to compare the available diagnostic strategies in predicting malignancy and to give a guide about the best techniques to employ. We performed a literature search using electronic databases (MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library). We collected all articles about endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) and endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) registering the outcomes. Moreover, we analyzed all meta-analyses comparing EMR vs ESD outcomes for colorectal sessile or non-polypoid lesions of any size, preoperatively estimated as non-invasive. Seven meta-analysis studies, mainly Eastern, were included in the analysis comparing 124 studies and overall 22954 patients who underwent EMR and ESD procedures. Of these, eighty-two were retrospective, twenty-four perspective, nine case-control, and six cohorts, while three were randomized clinical trials. A total of 18118 EMR and 10379 ESD were completed for a whole of 28497 colorectal sessile or non-polypoid lesions > 5-10 mm in size. In conclusion, it is crucial to enhance the preoperative diagnostic workup, especially in deciding the most suitable endoscopic method for radical resection of flat colorectal lesions at risk of underlying malignancy. Additionally, the ESD necessitates further improvement because of the excessively time-consuming as well as the intraprocedural technical hindrances and related complications. We found a higher rate of en bloc resections and R0 for ESD than EMR for non-pedunculated colorectal lesions. Nevertheless, despite the lower local recurrence rates, ESD had greater perforation rates and needed lengthier procedural times. The prevailing risk for additional surgery in ESD rather than EMR for complications or oncologic reasons is still uncertain.

Remote Sensing of Tropical Rainforest Biomass Changes in Hainan Island, China from 2003 to 2018

The largest area of tropical rainforests in China is on Hainan Island, and it is an important part of the world’s tropical rainforests. The structure of the tropical rainforests in Hainan is complex, the biomass density is high, and conducting ground surveys is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Remote sensing is a good monitoring method for biomass estimation. However, the saturation phenomenon of such data from different satellite sensors results in low forest biomass estimation accuracy in tropical rainforests with high biomass density. Based on environmental information, the biomass of permanent sample plots, and forest age, this study established a tropical rainforest database for Hainan. Forest age and 14 types of environmental information, combined with an enhanced vegetation index (EVI), were introduced to establish a tropical rainforest biomass estimation model for remote sensing that can overcome the saturation phenomenon present when using remote sensing data. The fitting determination coefficient R2 of the model was 0.694. The remote sensing estimate of relative bias was 2.29%, and the relative root mean square error was 35.41%. The tropical rainforest biomass in Hainan Island is mainly distributed in the central mountainous and southern areas. The tropical rainforests in the northern and coastal areas have been severely damaged by tourism and real estate development. Particularly in low-altitude areas, large areas of tropical rainforest have been replaced by economic forests. Furthermore, the tropical rainforest areas in some cities and counties have decreased, affecting the increase in tropical rainforest biomass. On Hainan Island, there were few tropical rainforests in areas with high rainfall. Therefore, afforestation in these areas could maximize the ecological benefits of tropical rainforests. To further strengthen the protection, there is an urgent need to establish a feasible, reliable, and effective tropical rainforest loss assessment system using quantitative scientific methodologies.

Establishment of a Sustainability Assessment System for Bridges

In this paper, with the motivation of “green” and “sustainability” for bridge projects, ten key indicators were selected to establish a reliable and applicable sustainability assessment system. It is also expecting the civil infrastructure to be developed more ecologically, environmentally, and friendly by applying the proposed assessment system. The data collection method in this research is questionnaire-based expert interviews. The questionnaire results were well analyzed and calculated for the key indicators’ weights by adopting the top two boxes theory (TTBT) and multiple attribute value theory (MAVT). Consequently, the sustainability assessment system for green civil infrastructure (SASGCI) was established to evaluate infrastructure projects’ sustainability achievements. In this study, the authors conclude the weights of ten key indicators for bridges as follows: risk mitigation and reliability: 15.3%, durability: 15.1%, landscape: 11.5%, ecology: 10.6%, benefit and function: 9.7%, environmental protection and carbon emissions reduction: 9.5%, waste reduction: 8.5%, energy-saving: 7.1%, creativity: 7.0%, and humanities and culture reservation: 5.6%. An example of a scenic bridge in Taiwan is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the established SASGCI for sustainability evaluation. The result indicates that the evaluation system is successful.

유압윈치 가속수명시험을 위한 가속인자 결정에 관한 연구

Purpose: Testing a hydraulic winch system by matching the field operating conditions is difficult due to the many operating factors that the system must control simultaneously. This study used different approaches to mimic the lifetime of the winch system to reduce the test time.BRMethods: We investigated the load condition of a hydraulic winch under field conditions and analyzed its failure mode and mechanism. In addition, we established a reliable assessment system for field conditions that could be reproduced and tested in the laboratory.BRResults: We applied an acceleration life test to overcome the difficulties of test time that could not be solved by the failure test. In addition, we established a reliability evaluation system for field conditions that could be reproduced and tested in a laboratory.BRConclusion: The acceleration factor was calculated using the force to pull the hydraulic winch from the wire, and the accelerated life test time was applied to perform a reliability assessment.

Nőtt az egyetemi tanulmányaikat kezdő diákok tanulási potenciálja és problémamegoldó képessége: években mérhető különbségek a diákok között

Az értékesnek számító tudás változásával, a gondolkodási és tanulási képességek szerepének felértékelődésével megjelent az igény olyan felsőoktatásban is könnyen alkalmazható tesztek, tesztrendszerek kidolgozására, amelyek túllépnek a hagyományos tudásszintmérő teszteken és szélesebb skálán jellemzik a diákok kognitív fejlődését. Miután a dinamikus problémamegoldó képesség jól jellemzi a diákok tanulási potenciálját és a frissen tanultak alkalmazási képességét, egy potenciális mérési területévé vált egy, a fenti igényeket kielégítő, a Szegedi Tudományegyetemen 2015 óta működtetett mérési rendszernek. A négy évet átfogó kutatási eredmények alapján megállapítható, hogy stabilan és megbízhatóan működtethető egy olyan értékelési rendszer, amely túllép a tudásszintmérő tesztek világán és azonnali visszacsatolás mellett alkalmas annak megállapítására, hogy a hallgatók milyen tanulási potenciállal és problémamegoldó képességgel kezdik meg egyetemi tanulmányaikat. A közel 7000 diák részvételével végzett mérés alapján megállapítható, hogy 2015 óta jelentős mértékben nőtt az egyetemre frissen felvett diákok tanulási potenciálja és problémamegoldó képessége. Mindemellett a diákok közötti különbség meglehetősen nagy, több éves fejlődésnek felel meg. Vannak olyan hallgatók, akik átlagos képességszintje egy általános iskolás diákénak felel meg. Az egyetemi bemeneti kompetenciamérés eredményei 2018-ban már negyedik alkalommal bizonyították, hogy az érettségi eredmények nem jelzik kellő biztonsággal az egyetemi tanulmányokra való alkalmasságot. A közép és emelt szintű vizsgák és a teszteredmények közötti összefüggés tantárgyanként és évenként is különböző erősségű. A különböző szinteken nyújtott teljesítmények nem hasonlíthatóak össze egymással és az érettségi által jellemzett tudásszint évenként változik.

A Real-Time Reliable Condition Assessment System for 500kV Transmission Towers Based on Stress Measurement

Transmission power towers play an important role in power delivery systems. In recent years, some important results on reliability of transmission towers have been obtained based on theoretical analysis, but there are very few practical application systems of real-time condition monitoring. This paper proposes a new real-time reliable condition assessment system for 500kV transmission power towers based on stress measurement. The necessity of such systems and the architecture of the online monitoring system will first be presented. Through calculating the stress distribution condition of different components of the transmission tower under typical working conditions, those positions with relatively high failure probability in the transmission tower can be identified monitored for installing the stress sensors on them. A new method is presented for calculating the reliability index of the transmission tower structure is also developed based on the mechanical structure of the tower. In particular, the tower structure is simplified to a series system, and the Ditlevsen’s bounds is used to estimate the reliability of the tower system. Finally, a designed example for the online reliable condition assessment procedure is given using a 500kV oxytropis tower as an illustration.

Development of Classification Models for Assessment of Endotracheal Intubation Training by a Cyber-Physical System

Endotracheal intubation (ETI) is one of the most staple skills in prehospital medicine that is performed to prevent suffocation of an unconscious person. To evaluate ETI skills of medical practitioners, an effective and reliable assessment system is required; however, the current assessment method relies on subjective evaluation by supervisors during training sessions that may be inaccurate and biased. To provide objective and immediate feedback to trainees, this paper proposes a cyber physical system (CPS)-based ETI assessment system. The CPS is composed of wearable gloves with embedded sensors to capture hand motion data and software to discriminate between two groups: experienced and novice. To this end, we collected hand motion data from the two groups and extracted 18 features. Furthermore, we identified reduced sets of 8 and 10 based on their statistical significance. To discriminate the two groups, artificial neural network-based classification models were developed with the three feature sets. Experimental results show that the classifiers with 18, 8, and 10 features achieved an accuracy of 90.94%, 87.87% and 89.60%, respectively. This work corroborates that wearable gloves with embedded motion sensors can be effective in assisting self-training of ETI on a CPS.

A novel Metric of Sustainability for petroleum refinery projects

Infrastructure projects will continue to be developed in the coming years, particularly in developing countries such as Iran. These projects can have major impacts on all three pillars of sustainability, i.e. social, economic, and environmental. Among these projects, energy as well as oil & gas projects can have an even bigger impact on all three pillars, in terms of magnitude and severity of the consequences. As such, energy and oil & gas projects are not only important from political and strategic point of view, but they are also of major significance when it comes to principles of sustainability. Therefore, it is important to introduce methods and solutions to improve the level of sustainability at which such facilities are designed, constructed, and operated. Although existing studies have suggested various methods to implement sustainable development principles in infrastructure projects, effective assessment of sustainability and proper definition of its indicators are scarce in this industry in general. Among oil & gas projects, Petroleum Refinery Industry (PRI) projects lack a reliable sustainability assessment system, although in practical terms, many elements of sustainability are incorporated in refineries nowadays.This research aims to develop a sustainability assessment framework including proper indicators for such an assessment. This framework can serve as a reference for future research in PRI projects. Sustainability indicators in all three pillars of sustainability are consolidated and structured under the proposed framework, which is designed to deal with the complicated makeup and operation of oil refinery projects. This article presents a novel Metric of Sustainability (MOS), which can help the decision makers, most notably strategic managers, to properly set up the process for design, construction, and operation of new refinery projects or audit and appraise the operating ones.Based on the proposed framework and the resulting MOS, a real refinery project is assessed according to the available data and required accuracy. The outputs are then presented in Fig. 3 for discussion. The results of this case study show that the environmental concerns are the most important issue in distillation units. Also, GHG emissions in the operating phase have the most adverse effect on the sustainability profile of the case refinery.

Proposing a new scoring system in intermittent exotropia: towards a better assessment of control

ObjectiveThere is a clinical need for a valid and reliable assessment system to quantify the severity and measure the progression of intermittent exotropia. We have developed a new scoring system (Look And Cover, then Ten seconds of Observation Scale for Exotropia [LACTOSE]) based on the examinee’s potential to regain the phoria for both distance and near fixation. The test takes only 1 minute to complete. The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of LACTOSE. MethodsThe LACTOSE was created by incorporating both distance and near score (0–4 each) into a total score ranging from 0 to 8. A total of 235 consecutive patients with intermittent exotropia were prospectively evaluated using this new scoring system. Inter-rater and test-retest reliability was assessed from a cohort of 10 patients who were video recorded while undergoing the scoring testing and then scored by 10 trained ophthalmologists independently. Construct validity was studied by comparison with clinical variables indicating disease severity. ResultsInter-rater reliability was good for both distance and near (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.729 and 0.818). Test-retest reliability was excellent for both distance and near (ICC = 0.849 and 0.727). Median scores for distance, near, and total were 3, 1, and 4, respectively. A broad representation of the total scores was significantly linked to the age of onset and the amount of exotropia (r2 = 0.194, p = 0.003 and r2 = 0.159, p < 0.001). ConclusionsWe found that our newly developed scoring system is a reliable and valid tool for assessing the severity of intermittent exotropia. This new measure can be implemented easily and efficiently across diverse clinical settings.

A smartphone-based automatic diagnosis system for facial nerve palsy.

Facial nerve palsy induces a weakness or loss of facial expression through damage of the facial nerve. A quantitative and reliable assessment system for facial nerve palsy is required for both patients and clinicians. In this study, we propose a rapid and portable smartphone-based automatic diagnosis system that discriminates facial nerve palsy from normal subjects. Facial landmarks are localized and tracked by an incremental parallel cascade of the linear regression method. An asymmetry index is computed using the displacement ratio between the left and right side of the forehead and mouth regions during three motions: resting, raising eye-brow and smiling. To classify facial nerve palsy, we used Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Leave-one-out Cross Validation (LOOCV) with 36 subjects. The classification accuracy rate was 88.9%.

The Challenges of Water Pollution, Threat to Public Health, Flaws of Water Laws and Policies in Pakistan

In an era of unprecedented urbanization, population and industrial growth pressure is serious threat for the water management in Pakistan in present days. Water pollution from raw sewage, industrial wastes, and agricultural runoff limited natural fresh water resources in the country. Human health is facing serious problems due to deteriorating drinking water quality. Current review paper provides an insight to the water quality problems in Pakistan with an attempt to emphasize the challenges of water laws enforcement. Although Pakistan has developed many water laws the state of implementation is dominant, intermediate pollution crises are still remaining. We could come to the conclusion that strictly enforcement is compulsory for water environment regulations in Pakistan. Moreover, it is necessary to establish a reliable risk assessment system for water quality, human health and ecological safety.

The reliability of a modified Kalamazoo Consensus Statement Checklist for assessing the communication skills of multidisciplinary clinicians in the simulated environment

ObjectiveWith increased recognition of the importance of sound communication skills and communication skills education, reliable assessment tools are essential. This study reports on the psychometric properties of an assessment tool based on the Kalamazoo Consensus Statement Essential Elements Communication Checklist. MethodsThe Gap-Kalamazoo Communication Skills Assessment Form (GKCSAF), a modified version of an existing communication skills assessment tool, the Kalamazoo Essential Elements Communication Checklist-Adapted, was used to assess learners in a multidisciplinary, simulation-based communication skills educational program using multiple raters. 118 simulated conversations were available for analysis. Internal consistency and inter-rater reliability were determined by calculating a Cronbach's alpha score and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), respectively. ResultsThe GKCSAF demonstrated high internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha score of 0.844 (faculty raters) and 0.880 (peer observer raters), and high inter-rater reliability with an ICC of 0.830 (faculty raters) and 0.89 (peer observer raters). ConclusionThe Gap-Kalamazoo Communication Skills Assessment Form is a reliable method of assessing the communication skills of multidisciplinary learners using multi-rater methods within the learning environment. Practice implicationsThe Gap-Kalamazoo Communication Skills Assessment Form can be used by educational programs that wish to implement a reliable assessment and feedback system for a variety of learners.

Status and challenges of water pollution problems in China: learning from the European experience

This paper provides a review of the water environment problems faced in China and a comparison with the European experience in dealing with such issues, with an attempt to emphasize the challenges in China. The paper also summarizes various studies in China to highlight the severity of water pollution problems faced by regulators, polluters and the general public. China’s water situation can be characterized by insufficient quantities of water, uneven distribution of water spatially and temporally, as well as poor water quality. Water pollution in China has spread from point source to non-point source, from fresh water to coastal water, and from surface water to groundwater. From the management and technological experience from EU, including water framework directive, water price system, desalination and groundwater recharge technologies, and from the analysis of water environment problems and management system in two regions, we could come to the conclusion that water price, water market and water tax could be introduced to China for water environment regulations. Moreover, it is necessary to establish a reliable risk assessment system for water quality, human health and ecological safety.

Multivariate Analysis of Tactile Sensory Data for Fine Lightweight Knitted Fabrics

The market for lightweight next-to-skin knitted wool fabrics requires a reliable tactile sensory or handle assessment system. In this paper, eight bipolar pairs of fabric tactile attributes to describe the tactile sensory properties of fifty-two next-to-skin knitted fabrics were evaluated by twelve experienced trained judges. Principal component analysis and partial least squares regression techniques were employed to analyse the tactile sensory data. The results showed that the most agreed tactile sensory dimension amongst the judges only occurred in the first principal component of each of the eight tactile attributes. In conjunction with the judges' loading coefficients on the agreed component, judges were selected for assessing the next-to-skin knitted fabrics. Furthermore, the relationship between the overall tactile quality and the primary tactile attributes was established using a partial least squares regression method, from which the existence of collinearity between the primary tactile attributes was constrained and the overall tactile quality was predicted with a prediction error of 0.48 subjective units on a scale of 1-10.

전사적 CRM 전략의 진단 및 평가 방법론 개발

As Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy is becoming a core competence more recently, many companies want a reliable CRM assessment system which enables measuring and diagnosing corporate customer strategies for building an optimized CRM strategy. However, there has been short of researches on developing the CRM diagnosis methodology that is directly applicable to real practices. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of CRM scorecard, we developed and suggested a corporate CRM diagnosis methodology that can systematically understand and assess the corporate CRM capability and performance, guiding their future directions. Companies can search the important but weak areas among various CRM strategy subjects through the proposed diagnostic procedures. This framework has a hierarchical structure that has four evaluative domains each of which has several evaluative subjects consisting of many evaluative themes: the score of upper factor is the weighted average of its subordinate factor scores. And the score of each evaluative theme is the weighted average of quantitative and qualitative evaluative indexes. Quantitative indexes are calculated by analyzing customer and sales data and qualitative ones are derived from survey data. Each evaluative index has more than one measure and its score can be derived from its own formula consisting of the measures. To prove the concept, we applied this framework to a real company and concluded that it might be appropriate to understand the corporate CRM strategy situation, find the pain points, and resolve them for better CRM implementation.