The Factorial Invariance of the Nurses' Observation Scale for Evaluation of Inpatients

1983 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 843-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas P. Carbonara ◽  
Brian K. Regan ◽  
Kevin J. Delaney ◽  
Mahadev Kumbar

The stability of the factor pattern of the NOSIE across 3 psychiatric center populations ( N = 3,027) was investigated. The 5 significant factors that emerged from the principal factor analyses were tested for invariance using the coefficient of congruence, root mean square, zero-order correlation, and the similarity index. The convergence of all the measures indicated that the Irritability, Personal Neatness, Social Interest, Social Competence, and Manifest Psychosis factors were remarkably stable across the 3 settings. The psychometric and clinical implications of the results are discussed.

2009 ◽  
Vol 107 (4) ◽  
pp. 1017-1027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Bloch-Salisbury ◽  
Premananda Indic ◽  
Frank Bednarek ◽  
David Paydarfar

Breathing patterns in preterm infants consist of highly variable interbreath intervals (IBIs) that might originate from nonlinear properties of the respiratory oscillator and its input-output responses to peripheral and central signals. Here, we explore a property of nonlinear control, the potential for large improvement in the stability of breathing using low-level exogenous stochastic stimulation. Stimulation was administered to 10 preterm infants (postconceptional age: mean 33.3 wk, SD 1.7) using a mattress with embedded actuators that delivered small stochastic displacements (0.021 mm root mean square, 0.090 mm maximum, 30–60 Hz); this stimulus was subthreshold for causing arousal from sleep to wakefulness or other detectable changes in the behavioral state evaluated with polysomnography. We used a test-retest protocol with multiple 10-min intervals of stimulation, each paired with 10-min intervals of no stimulation. Stimulation induced an ∼50% reduction ( P = 0.003) in the variance of IBIs and an ∼50% reduction ( P = 0.002) in the incidence of IBIs > 5 s. The improved stability of eupneic breathing was associated with an ∼65% reduction ( P = 0.04) in the duration of O2 desaturation. Our findings suggest that nonlinear properties of the immature respiratory control system can be harnessed using afferent stimuli to stabilize eupneic breathing, thereby potentially reducing the incidence of apnea and hypoxia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.3) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Mishell D. Lawas ◽  
Sherwin A. Guirnaldo

The stability of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) during actual flight conditions is one parameter that is very important in systems design in Avionics. In this research, two sensors, the autopilot microcontroller and the smartphone gyroscope sensing mechanism, are fused together and calibrated to monitor the flying behavior of the UAV prior to actual test flights. The two fused sensors and installed inside the UAV for relatively increased sensing accuracy and best flight monitoring capabilities. A Kalman filter is used as fusion technique and a Stewart Motion tracker is also used to test the ruggedness and accuracy of the fused sensor system. Experiment results show that fused system can give an overall mean square error or 1.9729.


2007 ◽  
Vol 07 (03) ◽  
pp. 389-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. B. RYASHKO

An exponential mean square stability for the invariant manifold [Formula: see text] of a nonlinear stochastic system is considered. The stability analysis is based on the [Formula: see text]-quadratic Lyapunov function technique. The local dynamics of the nonlinear system near manifold is described by the stochastic linear extension system. We propose a general notion of the projective stability (P-stability) and prove the following theorem. The smooth compact manifold [Formula: see text] is exponentially mean square stable if and only if the corresponding stochastic linear extension system is P-stable.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Muqtader Ahmed ◽  
Farhat Fatima ◽  
Abdul Bari Mohammed

The objective of the study was to formulate olive oil based organogels for the topical application of fluconazole (FLZ), to ensure the efficient delivery of the drug deeper in to the skin layers. Methods: Nine formulations developed by hot-melt method using olive oil, sorbitan monostearate (SMS) and FLZ. Prepared formulations characterized for macro evaluations, pH, spreadibility, viscosity, gel-sol transition, in-vitro diffusion study. Further optimized formulation evaluated for ex-vivo percutaneous permeation, in-vitro antifungal studies and stability studies by similarity index. Results: The results of evaluated parameters ensure the stability and effectiveness of the prepared olive oil based organogels. In-vitro diffusion studied reflects decrease in drug release with increase in surfactant concentration due to increase in viscosity. Moreover, ex-vivo permeation studies revealed that the permeation of FLZ was enhanced for optimized formulations (F6) as compared to the marketed gel formulation. Further, the optimized formulation exhibits the broad zone of inhibition against fungal strains in comparison to control and marketed product during in-vitro antifungal study. Conclusion: The olive oil based organogels formulation shown the enhanced permeation of FLZ from organogel network structure with good antifungal activity as compared to the marketed formulation. Henceforth, the FLZ organogel formulations could be used topically for the effective treatment of fungal infection.


Author(s):  
Sushma Tumkur Venugopal ◽  
Sriraam Natarajan ◽  
Megha P. Arakeri ◽  
Suresh Seshadri

Fetal Echocardiography is used for monitoring the fetal heart and for detection of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). It is well known that fetal cardiac four chamber view has been widely used for preliminary examination for the detection of CHD. The end diastole frame is generally used for the analysis of the fetal cardiac chambers which is manually picked by the clinician during examination/screening. This method is subjected to intra and inter observer errors and also time consuming. The proposed study aims to automate this process by determining the frame, referred to as the Master frame from the cine loop sequences that can be used for the analysis of the fetal heart chambers instead of the clinically chosen diastole frame. The proposed framework determines the correlation between the reference (first) frame with the successive frames to identify one cardiac cycle. Then the Master frame is formed by superimposing all the frames belonging to one cardiac cycle. The master frame is then compared with the clinically chosen diastole frame in terms of fidelity metrics such as Dice coefficient, Hausdorff distance, mean square error and structural similarity index. The average value of the fidelity metrics considering the dataset used for this study 0.73 for Dice, 13.94 for Hausdorff distance, 0.99 for Structural Similarity Index and 0.035 for mean square error confirms the suitability of the proposed master frame extraction thereby avoiding manual intervention by the clinician. .


2012 ◽  
Vol 239-240 ◽  
pp. 16-20
Author(s):  
Qi Bing Lv ◽  
Ke Li Tan ◽  
Xi Zhang ◽  
Jian Chen ◽  
Guo Qing Liu

Based on the mobile rail flash butt welding machine UN5-150ZB, the synchronous data acquisition hardware system was designed to collect welding current, welding voltage and flash acoustic signal in welding process, and the software platform with the functions of signal collecting, waveform display and data operation was developed by higher-level programming language LabVIEW. After the welding current, welding voltage and flash acoustic signal in welding process had been collected, the mean, variance and mean square value of flash acoustic signal in time-domain were analyzed. Through comparison, the relationship between these characteristics and the stability of flash was analyzed. The result shows that the changes of mean and variance of flash acoustic signal are not obvious, and do not correlate with stability of flash, but the mean square value in time domain is closely associated with the stability of flash, and the stability of flash can be indicated by the mean square value.


Compared with conventional land-based mining and processing operations, the exploitation of minerals from the seabed, particularly in deep water, involves a vast range of new problems in conducting the various stages of mining, transportation, processing and disposal of waste products, in a marine environment. In all such operations the ways in which local sea and weather conditions and their seasonal variations affect the stability of the vehicle, be it ship or other floating structure or submersible from which the operations are being conducted, have to be taken into account. The resulting motion together with vibration generated by propulsion and other machinery are significant factors in the performance and behaviour of equipment and materials during processing, handling and transportation operations at sea. In deep-sea mining operations at depths of 2-5 km the effects of associated pressure, salinity and temperature must also be dealt with. The paper reviews the present state of such knowledge as currently practised in continental-shelf operations, and as proposed in various deep-sea mining operations. Associated research requirements for future mineral exploitation in the deep-sea environment are discussed.


Author(s):  
Dylan Poulsen ◽  
Ian Gravagne ◽  
John M. Davis

This paper is motivated by the problems posed in feedback control design when actuators, sensors, and/or computational nodes connect via unreliable or unpredictable communications channels. In these cases, there is a degree of stochastic uncertainty to the timing of the system’s discretizing elements, such as digital-to-analog converters. Several theorems related to the stability of non-uniformly sampled discrete dynamical systems have recently been proposed; here we examine through numeric investigation the characteristics of systems which are mean square exponentially stable (MSES). In particular we present a method to compute the range of mean and variance that a nonuniformly discretized feedback control system may tolerate while remaining MSES. Several examples are presented.


1972 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 207-210
Author(s):  
A. Sh. Afremoff ◽  
E. P. Nikolaev

This paper is concerned with the non-linear characteristics of an auto-pilot in improving the stability of ships in following seas. The theory is developed for optimizing the auto-pilot, accounting for the non-linearities introduced by limitations on rudder angle and rudder angular velocity. The yaw and rudder angles are assumed to be stationary random processes, and the Wiener–Hopf integral is used to obtain the transfer function relating them in a system of waves, hence yielding the optimum rudder behaviour. For given auto-pilot characteristics, it is shown how root-mean-square yaw angles may be estimated for a ship in a given course in a known sea state.


1987 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. N. Howard ◽  
G. Veronis

In order to investigate the stability of infinitely long fully developed salt fingers Stern (1975) has proposed a model in which the basic configuration is independent of the vertical and is sinusoidal in the horizontal direction, with constant background gradients of temperature and salinity. The present study deals with a model of finite vertical extent where τ, the ratio of the diffusivities of salt and heat, is small, and where the constant background salt gradient is replaced by a salt difference between the reservoirs above and below a salt-finger region of finite depth. Steady-state solutions in two and three dimensions are obtained for the zero-order (τ = 0) state in which rising (sinking) fingers have the salinity of the lower (upper) reservoir. For two-dimensional fingers the horizontal scale corresponding to maximum buoyancy flux turns out to be 1.7 times the buoyancy-layer scale associated with the background stable temperature gradient. Heat, salt and buoyancy fluxes are calculated. A boundary-layer analysis is given for the (salt) diffusive correction to the zero-order solution. The same set of calculations is carried out for salt fingers in a Hele-Shaw cell. An assessment of Schmitt's (1979a) model of a finger zone of finite depth shows that the parametric restrictions required by the model cannot be satisfied when Stern's idealization is used for the final state. The present model appears to be preferable for constructing a Schmitt-like theory for τ [Lt ] 1.


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