Worst Part Research Articles

A Data Driven Method for Model Based Diagnostics and Prognostics


 
 
 This article’s model based diagnostics system has four modules. Diagnosis and fault location forms physics models of the machine, measures states off the real in-service machine, generates simulated machine states and simulated sensor outputs for the machine model with loads same as the real machine, and compares simulated sensor outputs to real sensor outputs. The parameter tuning module adjusts (tunes) the parameters of the model until the simulated sensor outputs closely mimic real sensor outputs. Tuning transfers information on the system’s health from the sensor data to the model’s parameters. Parameters changed from nominal values locate faults and bad parts. For the health assessment module to assess machine health, we view a machine as a “machine channel” that organizes power and information flow through the machine. Machines focus power via an organization inherent in its components and design. Broken or degraded components disrupt this organization and the power and information flows. Shannon’s information theory for communications channels can then be applied as a health metric to this “machine channel”. Ageing of components degrades machine functional health. To prognose future health, differential equations that model ageing of the machine’s components are formulated and solved. These equations predict component degradation, and update values of parameters in the model associated with component ageing. With these future parameter values, simulations of the machine operation model can then predict “future” machine behavior, and system health. This article demonstrates these methods on motors and a pump.
 
 

The impact of prostate cancer on men's everyday life.

Prostate cancer impacts on the daily lives of men, particularly their physical and emotional health, relationships and social life. This paper highlights how men cope with disease and treatment and the strategies they employ to manage their diagnosis alongside daily life. Twenty-seven men were interviewed at different stages in their disease pathway: nine men prior to radiotherapy, eight men at 6-8 months post radiotherapy and 10 men at 12-18 months post radiotherapy. A grounded theory approach was used to collect and analyse the data. Regardless of the point at which they were interviewed four areas emerged as important to the men: the pathway to diagnosis; the diagnosis; the impact of prostate cancer and its treatment on daily life; and living with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer was diagnosed using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, rectal examination and biopsy. Many men did not understand the consequences of a high PSA reading before they undertook the test. Painful investigative biopsies were viewed as the worst part of the disease experience. Radiotherapy was considered less invasive than other treatments, although preparatory regimes were associated with stress and inconvenience. Men used various strategies to deal with treatment-induced threats to their masculinity in the long term.

Automatic Detection of Grid Delivery Services Using a Real-Time Monitoring System

Though Grid Delivery Services (GDSs) can promote Quality of Service (QoS) in Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), some of them may degrade the performance of the client computers by consuming the network resources. The worst part of GDSs is that some of them are registered as system services and executed automatically when the operating system boots up. Since GDSs are not classified as malware, it is extremely hard to detect them automatically even when the user wants to remove them. This paper proposes an automatic method to detect GDSs by monitoring the network usage of all the processes. We include empirical evidence to indicate this approach is effective even though it adopts an extremely simple approach.

Notes on The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History

The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History started life somewhere between a party and a temporary autonomous zone—a very temporary autonomous zone, because we were shut down by the police some five hours after we opened our doors. By then, over 300 people had crowded into my Brooklyn loft to experience more than twenty-five exhibits on topics ranging from lesbian communities in Haiti to seventeenth-century Baroque opera. A gingerbread replica of Stonewall, complete with sugar-cookie cops, shared a table with an altar to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. A timeline of American queer history—with nearly fifty hand drawn illustrations—snaked throughout the warren of small rooms my roommates had created from two-by and plastic. It was January 14, 2011, and I’d spent the last few months thinking about the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” from the Hide/Seek show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. I was furious, of course, but I also realized that the chances of my getting to DC to see the show were next to nil. They could have pulled the entire thing, and it wouldn’t have directly affected me. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have directly affected anyone I knew. I say this not to criticize Hide/Seek, but because in the context of the near total silence on the part of all museums, everywhere, with regards to queer history, the removal of one piece of art was simultaneously enraging and downright pedestrian. I vented on Facebook, which felt like pissing vinegar into an ocean already full of it: one more stream of hot invective disappearing with barely a splash. The worst part was that I couldn’t even really blame the National Portrait Gallery.

Impact and Assessment of Measurement Systems that Meet the 4:1 Rule

This article considers the impact of a measurement system that meets the 4:1 rule. Probabilities of accepting a bad part and rejecting a good part are evaluated. A simulation study calculates the increased estimates of the population standard deviation when the measurement error is ignored, where both non‐trending and trending populations are considered. Also, the impact of sample size is evaluated on estimates and upper confidence bounds of the measurement system standard deviation that are used to assess the 4:1 rule capability; both measurement systems from a single and multiple sources of variation are explored. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PD11-08 PATIENT PERCEPTION OF PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL DISTRESS RELATED TO URODYNAMICS TESTING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; A QUESTIONNAIRE-BASED STUDY AMONG MEN AND WOMEN WITH AND WITHOUT NEUROLOGIC CONDITIONS

You have accessJournal of UrologyUrodynamics/Incontinence/Female Urology: Incontinence Evaluation1 Apr 2014PD11-08 PATIENT PERCEPTION OF PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL DISTRESS RELATED TO URODYNAMICS TESTING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; A QUESTIONNAIRE-BASED STUDY AMONG MEN AND WOMEN WITH AND WITHOUT NEUROLOGIC CONDITIONS Anne M. Suskind, J. Quentin Clemens, John T. Stoffel, Ann Oldendorf, Bahaa S. Malaeb, Teresa Jandron, and Anne P. Cameron Anne M. SuskindAnne M. Suskind More articles by this author , J. Quentin ClemensJ. Quentin Clemens More articles by this author , John T. StoffelJohn T. Stoffel More articles by this author , Ann OldendorfAnn Oldendorf More articles by this author , Bahaa S. MalaebBahaa S. Malaeb More articles by this author , Teresa JandronTeresa Jandron More articles by this author , and Anne P. CameronAnne P. Cameron More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2014.02.541AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Urodynamic testing is an invasive procedure that can be associated with physical discomfort and emotional distress. The purpose of this study was to identify patients’ perceptions of this test according to gender and neurologic status. METHODS This is a questionnaire-based pilot study completed by patients immediately after undergoing urodynamic testing. Participants were asked questions pertaining to their perceptions of physical and emotional distress related to the study, their urologic and general health history, and their demographics. Results were stratified by gender and the presence of neurologic conditions. RESULTS A total of 108 patients completed the questionnaire. The majority of respondents (62.0%) felt that the exam was neither physically nor emotionally distressing, and 31.0% felt that the physical distress was worse than the emotional distress (Table). The worst part of the physical discomfort was the placement of the urethral catheter (36.8% in males, 35.1% in females). Pain associated with placement of the rectal catheter was low in both groups (7.9% in males and 3.9% in females). Results stratified by the presence of neurologic conditions followed a similar pattern; however, respondents with neurologic conditions reported no physical discomfort more often (40.7% compared to 29.7% in non-neurologic respondents). In terms of emotional distress, most respondents reported no emotional distress associated with the urodynamics study (51.5%), followed by anxiety (24.2%), embarrassment (16.2%), and not understanding what was happening (2.0%). Results were similar regardless of gender or the presence of a neurologic condition. CONCLUSIONS Urodynamic studies are well tolerated by men and women both with and without neurologic conditions. Patient perception of physical discomfort tended to be worse than that of emotional discomfort, with placement of the urethral catheter causing the most physical distress. Patient reported perceptions of physical and emotional distress stratified by gender and neurologic status. Results are presented as percentages. Overall (N=108) Male (N=39) Female (N=60) Non-Neuro (N=80) Neuro (N=28) WORST PART OF EXAM Physical discomfort 31.0 31.6 30.4 32.9 25.9 Emotional discomfort 5.0 5.3 5.4 4.1 7.4 Equally bad 2.0 2.6 1.8 1.4 3.7 Neither bad 62.0 60.5 62.5 61.6 63.0 PHYSICAL DISCOMFORT Placement of urethral catheter 35.6 36.8 35.1 39.2 25.9 No discomfort 32.7 31.6 31.6 29.7 40.7 Holding a full bladder 10.9 7.9 14.0 10.8 11.1 Urinating 6.9 2.6 10.5 6.8 7.4 Placement of catheter in rectum 5.0 7.9 3.5 5.4 3.7 Filling bladder with fluid 3.0 2.6 1.8 2.7 3.7 EMOTIONAL DISCOMFORT None 51.5 47.4 54.6 50.0 55.6 Anxiety 24.2 26.3 23.6 25.0 22.2 Embarrassment 16.2 18.4 14.6 16.7 14.8 Not understanding what was happening 2.0 2.6 3.6 2.8 7.4 Fear 2.0 2.6 1.8 2.8 -- © 2014FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 191Issue 4SApril 2014Page: e289 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2014MetricsAuthor Information Anne M. Suskind More articles by this author J. Quentin Clemens More articles by this author John T. Stoffel More articles by this author Ann Oldendorf More articles by this author Bahaa S. Malaeb More articles by this author Teresa Jandron More articles by this author Anne P. Cameron More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...

Machined Surface Quality Improvement Measures Affecting Factors and Research

The use of mechanical products to improve performance and increase the service life of components and composition of the product processing quality is closely related to machining quality is the basis of product quality assurance. Measure of good or bad quality parts machining the main indicators are: machining accuracy and surface roughness. This paper mainly affect parts of the surface roughness factor, parts of the surface layer of the physical and mechanical properties (surface work hardening, residual stress, microstructure change and grinding burn), surface quality performance parts and other factors affecting the analysis and research to improve the quality of machined surface process measures.

Biases in preferences for sequences of outcomes in monkeys

Movies, vacations, and meals are all examples of events composed of a sequence of smaller events. How do we go from our evaluations of each scene in a movie to an evaluation of the sequence as a whole? In theory, we should simply average the values of the individual events. In practice, however, we are biased towards sequences where each element tends to be better than the previous, where the last value is large, and we overweight the best (or worst) part of the sequence. To study how general these biases are we examined monkeys’ preferences for sequences of rewards in a novel reward repeat task. Monkeys were first given a sequence of rewards and then chose between repeating the sequence or receiving a standard comparator sequence. We found that, like humans, monkeys overweight events that happen later in a sequence, so much so that adding a small reward to the end of a sequence can paradoxically reduce its value. Monkeys were also biased towards sequences with large peak values (the highest value in the sequence), but only following a working memory challenge, suggesting that this preference may be driven by memory limitations. These results demonstrate the cross-species nature of biases in preferences for sequences of outcomes. In addition, monkeys’ consistent preference for sequences in which large values occur later challenges the generality of discounting models of intertemporal choice in animals.

The Role of Conflict in Producing Alternative Social Imaginations of the Future

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivatives 3.0 License.

The Buzz: Facilities Are Going Alarm-Free

The Buzz: Facilities Are Going Alarm-Free

Modeling waste production into two-machine–one-buffer transfer lines

This article focuses on analytical models of two-machine one-buffer Markov lines including waste production. The aim is to compute the probability of producing good parts, referred to as effective efficiency, when waste production is related to stoppages of the first machine. This problem is common in industrial fields where parts are generated by a continuous process; e.g., in high-speed beverage packaging lines. Two innovative models including waste production are presented: the WP-Basic Model extends the model of a basic two-machine–one-buffer transfer line; the WP-RP Model extends the model of a two-machine–one-buffer transfer line with a restart policy operating on the first machine (i.e., when the first machine is blocked because the buffer is filled, it is not allowed to resume production until the buffer becomes empty). The two existing models are improved by distinguishing, at any time step the first machine is operational, whether it is producing a good or a bad part. The probabilities of the system being in any feasible state are analytically derived for both the WP-Basic Model and the WP-RP Model. Then, the obtained probabilities are used to determine the performance measures of interest; i.e., waste probability and effective efficiency. Finally, some numerical results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the WP-Basic Model and the WP-RP Model.

Integrative Approaches for Mechanical Mold Design in Injection Molding

The injection mold faces a number of different loads during the injection molding process for plastic parts. The effect on the mechanical behavior of the mold, inserts, and adjacent processes can be complex and may cause bad final parts. By using an integrative simulation approach it is possible to take the process influence into account when calculating the solid body behavior of the mold in a structural simulation. A newly developed approach at IKV uses the advantages of the integrative approach and extends it by an automatic back coupling of deformation results during the filling simulation. This way the interaction of the melt flow and the deformation of inserts or mold components can be considered during the filling phase.

Insights on GRACE (Gender, Race, And Clinical Experience) from the Patient's Perspective: GRACE Participant Survey

The Gender, Race And Clinical Experience (GRACE) study was conducted between October 2006 and December 2008 to evaluate sex- and race-based differences in outcomes after treatment with a darunavir/ritonavir-based antiretroviral regimen. Between June 2010 and June 2011, former participants of the GRACE trial at participating sites were asked to complete a 40-item questionnaire as part of the GRACE Participant Survey study, with a primary objective of assessing patients' characteristics, experiences, and opinions about participation in GRACE. Of 243 potential survey respondents, 151 (62%) completed the survey. Respondents were representative of the overall GRACE population and were predominantly female (64%); fewer were black, and more reported recreational drug use compared with nonrespondents (55% vs. 62% and 17% vs. 10%, respectively). Access to treatment (41%) and too many blood draws (26%) were reported as the best and worst part of GRACE, respectively. Support from study site staff was reported as the most important factor in completing the study (47%). Factors associated with nonadherence, study discontinuation, and poor virologic response in univariate analyses were being the primary caregiver for children, unemployment, and transportation difficulties, respectively. Patients with these characteristics may be at risk of poor study outcomes and may benefit from additional adherence and retention strategies in future studies and routine clinical care.

Safe product design – the role of the NDT reliability analysis

Abstract In line with the damage tolerance design principles, an adequate non-destructive inspection system is needed to ensure structural integrity. Yet, when pushed to the limits of their detection capability, non-destructive evaluation systems do not produce consistent hit/miss indications. Their capability of detecting flaws is therefore expressed as a probability of detection. In the conventional signal response reliability analysis, the probability of detection is expressed as a function of the flaw size. The adequacy of the inspection system is verified by comparing the size of the flaw that is reliably detected with the maximum allowable flaw size, which will not undermine the structural integrity. Analyses of modern structures show that other parameters also determine the severity of the flaw for the structure. Within the multi-parameter reliability analysis, the probability of detection can be expressed as a function of diverse influencing parameters. When determining the adequacy of the non-destructive evaluation system, the capability of detecting a flaw has to be expressed and checked against the critical value of exactly that parameter that determines flaw severity for the structure. Failing to do so can lead to a rejection of the healthy, or acceptance of the bad part. The principle is demonstrated on the transmit-receive longitudinal ultrasonic inspection data of the iron cast component with surface, semi-elliptical, crack-like flaws.

The RJ Style: Brought to you by Bangladeshi FM radio

In recent years, the popularity of FM Radio stations has brought a unique change in speech style among the Bangladeshi youth. This paper compares the views of both the Radio Jockeys (RJ) and the young listeners to find out to what extent this phenomenon of RJ Speech influences the speech of the youth. The authors of the paper have selected 110 tertiary students randomly to collect their opinions through a questionnaire. Besides, seven RJs of four radio stations were interviewed and recordings of different programmes of the four FM radio stations were analysed to trace the new slang words and pronunciations used in this new style of speaking. The findings show that the young listeners think that they use this style both consciously and unconsciously. They sometimes take up this obviously “made up accent” to become a part of the popular and stylish group of friends on campus. On the other hand, the RJs do not want to admit that they are adversely influencing standard Bangla. They claim that it is up to the listeners to take the good or bad part of a programme and RJs will always adhere to their unique style. Stamford Journal of English; Volume 6; Page 1-26 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/sje.v6i0.13899

Aortic valve calcification and the performance of TAVI: Bad actor or part of the scenery?

Aortic valve calcification and the performance of <scp>TAVI</scp>: Bad actor or part of the scenery?

Not fat, not skinny, functional enough to finish: interrogating constructions of health in the Ironman Triathlon

Sport has long been popularly promoted as a way to improve one's health through participation. Socio-cultural scholars investigating sport-related pain and injury, however, have called into question this suggested relationship pointing especially to competitive and contact sports as examples that challenge this assumption (Theberge, 2008. “Just a normal bad part of what I do”: Elite athletes’ accounts of the relationship between health and sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25, 206–222; Waddington, 2004. Sport, health, and public policy. In K. Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves: Sociological studies in sports-related injury. London: Elsevier; Young, 2004. Sports-related pain and injury: Sociological notes. In K.Young (Ed.), Sporting bodies, damaged selves: Sociological studies of sports-related injury (pp. 1–25). Oxford: Elsevier). In this paper, I use autobiographical and interview materials to explore how people who participate in Ironman triathlons construct health; I reveal the ways that in this non-contact, non-professional sport, ideas that connect health to body image and functionality, emerged most frequently in my analysis. I suggest that these constructions are influenced by neoliberal health discourses, in particular, the notions of individual responsibility, the use of leisure (non-work) time for self-work and (albeit to an extreme end) anti-obesity messages. Insights in this paper serve to further challenge popular assumptions that participation in sport is unquestionably healthy even in non-competitive, individual sport scenarios.

Childhood obesity: An epidemic in waiting?

Progress of a country comes at a price. With the booming economy, Indians have now more food stuff to eat. Most of the time what we eat and give our children to eat is not healthy. Consequently, a lot more Indian children are becoming overweight like their western counterparts. Approximately 22 million children, under five years of age, are overweight across the world. The worst part is that we do not know for sure what proportion of Indian children are overweight. Different studies in India have shown a wide range of prevalence of childhood obesity. Recent studies have proved beyond doubt that this impending epidemic is not only restricted to the elite children in our country, but has crossed the socioeconomic divide and childhood obesity is on the rise even among the less privileged ones. Recent findings have shown that the propensity to become obese is evident as early as someone is in the uterus. Obesity is the root cause of many chronic diseases. The best way to tackle the obesity epidemic is to lessen its burden in children. The earlier we intervene in a person's life; the better will be the results, not only for the individual, but for the country as well. Population-based prevention strategies are the best to tackle this epidemic. It seeks to change the social norm by encouraging an increase in healthy behaviour and a reduction in health risk. They involve shifting the responsibility of tackling health risks from the individual to governments and health ministries.

What it’s like to be an editor at a conference

Scientific conferences: when you start out as a graduate student, you most likely get to go to the big one in your field each year, and maybe a local symposium. As a postdoc, you might add one or two more. At any of these, you are likely to run into either academic or professional journal editors. It’s tempting as a scientist to believe that many editors are like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, pre-Ghost visits. Instead, most subscribe to the later, ‘there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour’ philosophy from the Dickens book. Editors know just like you that the scientific conference is a great place to merge the best research and good humor (particularly in the bar). As a manuscript editor at Nature, I regularly went to 6 to 10 conferences a year, in addition to many lab visits around the world. I quickly realized that travel and meeting authors in person was one of the best ways to learn what authors want from editors, while also being one of the best ways to keep me from doing the rapid yet thoughtful manuscript handling that authors say is their top priority. I’ve broken the experience of being a professional editor at a conference into three groups of authors: past, present and future. 1. Authors past. Let’s face it: rejection stinks all around. Legend attributes this nugget to Benjamin Lewin, founder of Cell: ‘Everyone thinks that my job is publishing papers. In reality, my job is rejection of papers.’ Over my 6.5 years at Nature and on average turning up to 80% of submissions away without review, the constant sending of rejection letters became the worst part of the job. Predecessors taught me to implement a 24-hour rule; that is, not taking any calls from rejected authors until the next day. This makes a huge difference in the tone of the interaction, giving everyone a chance to sleep on things (and thus I still use it as a general policy when I find myself on the author side). Unfortunately, at conferences people with understandably hurt feelings may be thrown together in small spaces.

Excessive gingival display: treatment by a modified lip repositioning technique

The objective of this prospective study was to investigate outcomes of a lip repositioning technique for the treatment of excessive gingival display. Thirteen consecutively treated patients with excessive gingival display were treated with a modified lip repositioning technique. Treatment consisted of the removal of two strips of mucosa, bilaterally to the maxillary labial frenum and coronal repositioning of the new mucosal margin. The clinical dimensions of gingival display, upper lip and vermillion length were measured at baseline, 3 and 6months post-operatively. Subjects completed surveys to evaluate satisfaction with outcomes. The baseline gingival display of 5.8±2.1mm significantly decreased to 1.4±1.0mm at 3months (p<0.0001) and was maintained until 6months (1.3±1.6mm). The reduction in gingival display strongly correlated to the combined change in upper lip and vermillion length (r(2) =0.60, p=0.0018). Subjects were satisfied with their smile after surgery and would likely choose to undergo the procedure again (92%). The worst part of undergoing the procedure was the discomfort or the inability to move the lip during the early healing (69%). Treatment of excessive gingival display by means of a modified lip repositioning technique results in high level of patient satisfaction and predictable outcomes that are stable in the short term.