Reinforcement Learning in Healthcare: A Survey

As a subfield of machine learning, reinforcement learning (RL) aims at optimizing decision making by using interaction samples of an agent with its environment and the potentially delayed feedbacks. In contrast to traditional supervised learning that typically relies on one-shot, exhaustive, and supervised reward signals, RL tackles sequential decision-making problems with sampled, evaluative, and delayed feedbacks simultaneously. Such a distinctive feature makes RL techniques a suitable candidate for developing powerful solutions in various healthcare domains, where diagnosing decisions or treatment regimes are usually characterized by a prolonged period with delayed feedbacks. By first briefly examining theoretical foundations and key methods in RL research, this survey provides an extensive overview of RL applications in a variety of healthcare domains, ranging from dynamic treatment regimes in chronic diseases and critical care, automated medical diagnosis, and many other control or scheduling problems that have infiltrated every aspect of the healthcare system. In addition, we discuss the challenges and open issues in the current research and highlight some potential solutions and directions for future research.

Destination Management for Ecotourism Activity Using Analytical Hierarchy Process

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) refers to a decision-making method that decomposes the elements related to decision-making into goals, criteria, plans, and other levels and performs qualitative and quantitative analysis. Ecotourism is one component of sustainable tourism. Due to ecotourism activity, ecotourism links the reserved area with local residents and tourists. The aim of this research is to identify the proper ecotourism activity in Diaoluo Mountain National Nature Reserve with the help of the AHP method. The motivation behind the use of AHP is its widespread use in the decision-making process of selection of suitable candidate or alternative spot for tourists’ activity in the domain of ecotourism. The result shows that the most suitable ecotourism activity is “visit and experience life in the original ecology villages of Li and Miao ethnic minorities with a guide.” The proposed AHP decision-making method has effectively been used to select ecotourism activity based on multiple criteria evaluations.

A Pharmacokinetic Study of Mix-160 by LC-MS/MS: Oral Bioavailability of a Dosage Form of Citroflavonoids Mixture

This study was performed to evaluate and compare the pharmacokinetic parameters between two dosage formulations of hesperidin and naringenin: mixture and tablet. Our objective was to determine that the flavonoid tablet does not significantly modify the pharmacokinetic parameters compared with the mixture. For this study, we administered 161 mg/kg of either mixture (Mix-160) or tablet composed of hesperidin and by intragastric administration. Blood microsamples were collected from tail vein up to 24 h. Serum flavonoid extraction was performed by solid phase extraction and analyzed by LC-MS/MS of triple quadrupole (QqQ). Serum concentration vs. time plot showed that data fitted for a first-order model. The pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by a noncompartmental model. The results showed that the absorption constant is higher than the elimination constant. The first concentration was found at five minutes, and minimal concentration at 24 h after administration, suggesting a enterohepatic recirculation phenomena and regulation of liver cytochromes’ activity. We did not find meaningful differences between the pharmacokinetic parameters of both samples. We concluded that tablet form did not interfere with the bioavailability of hesperidin and naringenin, and it could be a suitable candidate for developing a drug product.

Comparison of Chicken Immune Responses to Immunization with Vaccine La Sota or ZG1999HDS Strain of Newcastle Disease Virus

Newcastle disease (ND) is a highly contagious avian disease. Global control of ND is mainly based on vaccination of poultry; however, reported outbreaks of ND in vaccinated flocks indicate a constant need to re-evaluate the existing vaccines and a development of the new ones. In this study, 4-week-old male chickens of the layer commercial hybrid were immunized oculonasally with a commercial NDV live La Sota vaccine (LS group), a suspension of lyophilized NDV strain ZG1999HDS (ZG group), or saline (Control (K) group). Antibody response was determined by haemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay. Cell-mediated immunity (CMI) was characterized by immunophenotyping of leukocyte’s and T-lymphocyte’s subpopulations (flow cytometry). Applied NDV strains did not cause any adverse reaction in treated chickens. Both strains induced the significantly higher HI antibody response in comparison to the control group, and overall antibody titer was higher in ZG group than in LS group. CMI, manifested as a higher proliferation of B- and T-helper cells, yielded better results in the ZG groups than in the LS group. Based on the obtained results, we conclude that the strain ZG1999HDS is immunogenic and is a suitable candidate for further research and development of poultry vaccines.

Li@C60 thin films: characterization and nonlinear optical properties

A facile way is shown to obtain thin films of Li@C60 as well as their characterization and nonlinear optical properties. Our results suggest Li@C60 to be a suitable candidate for high-harmonic generation.

Implementasi Sistem Penunjang Keputusan Dalam Pemilihan Calon Team Leader Menggunakan Metode Simple Additive Weighting (SAW)

So far, the selection of prospective Team Leaders in companies is still manual so it is not in accordance with the standard operating procedures for selection. The system designed in this study aims to ensure the accuracy of HRD in selecting candidates Team Leader to match the expectations of the company itself. From the comparison of the methods that have been carried out by researchers, themethod is the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW)right choice and the researcher will implement it with the provisions of the criteria that have been set including, Communication, Problem Solving Skills, Time Management, English, Achievement. To build this system, researchers used the programming languages PHP and MySQL. From the calculation of the level of accuracy, manual calculations get a percentage of 86.6% while the calculation with the proposed system achieves the maximum result with a percentage of 100%. It can be concluded that the calculation with the system is able to determine a suitable candidate as a Team Leader very accurately and on target.

AL-LAMASÂT AL-BALÂGHIYAH FÎ KITÂB RAFÎQÎ LI MOHAMMAD NUR ASYIQ: DIRÂSAH TAHLÎLIYAH BALÂGHIYAH

Rafiqî by Mohammad Nur Asyiq is one of the literary works which was written in Arabic and was widespread in Indonesia in the seventies. The book is constructed from several Arabic pieces of literatures with the author’s touch of al-Balâghah discipline and its three branches: al-Ma’âny, al-Bayân, and al-Badî’, thus making this book is a suitable candidate for a study concerning al-Balâghah. This book can be used to explore the purpose and intent of applying al-Balâghah language style as well as revealing the scientific and social characteristics of the author. By applying descriptive analytical approach, it was found that the author used several language styles, such as al-Istifhâm, al-Iltifât, al-Qashr, al-Fashl wa al-Washl, at-Tasybîh, al-Kinâyah, and al-Iqtibâs. Those applications of al-Balâgah reveal the author’s noble personality and his affection for Indonesia, his fought against invaders to seize Indonesia’s independence, his eagerness to consume local domestic products, and his compassion for the weak.

Rise to Power

This chapter offers a reconstruction of Jovian’s rise to imperial power after Julian died in the Persian heartland. A few hours after Julian’s death, the army generals, the commanders of the legions and cavalry squadrons, as well as high civil officials assembled at the dawn of June 27, 363, to elect a successor. After the praetorian prefect Salutius had declined the emperorship and no agreement could be reached on a suitable candidate, the imperial guardsmen (protectores) put their commander (primicerius domesticorum) Jovian forward as the new emperor. He was soon accepted by the generals, high officials, and the complete army as their new ruler. Although sometimes argued otherwise, Jovian’s elevation to the throne was legitimate according to the primary sources. According to the Christian sources, Jovian initially refused to became emperor (recusatio imperii). Although Ammianus Marcellinus mentions that he was unfit for the emperorship, it is argued that Jovian’s background, his family connections (his own father Varronianus and his father-in-law Lucillianus), as well as his own military career, made him eligible for the emperorship. Nevertheless, Jovian was a compromise candidate and was made emperor not for his dynamic leadership, but in the expectation that he would work in collaboration with the senior staff (the men who had elected him) to get the army out of Persia and to lead the soldiers back to Roman territory.

Preparation of Ultrathin and Degradable Polymeric Films by Electropolymerization of 3-Amino-L-Tyrosine

The resource intensive and environmentally unfriendly synthesis, recycling and disposal of today’s plastics has sparked interest in greener polymer processing. Bioderived polymers are one of many current areas of research that show promise for a sustainable future. One bioderived polymer that has been in the spotlight for the past decade due to its unique properties is polydopamine (PDA). Its ability to adhere to virtually any surface showing high stability in a wide pH range from 2-10 and in several organic solvents makes it a suitable candidate for several applications ranging from medical devices, coatings to biosensing applications. However, its strong and broad light absorption limits many applications that rely on transparent material, moreover fluorescence applications are limited by the high quenching efficiency of PDA. Therefore, new bioderived polymers that share similar features as PDA without fluorescent quenching are highly desirable. In this study, the electropolymerization of a bioderived analogue of dopamine, 3-amino-L-tyrosine (ALT) is demonstrated. The properties of the resultant polymer, poly-amino-L-tyrosine (p-ALT), exhibit several characteristics complementary to or even exceeding those of PDA and of its analog, poly-norepinephrine (p-NorEp), rendering p-ALT attractive for the development of sensors and photoactive devices. Cyclic voltammetry, spectroelectrochemistry and electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance have been applied to study the electrodeposition of this material and the resulting polymeric films have been compared to PDA and p-NorEp. Impedance spectroscopy revealed increased ions permeability of p-ALT with respect PDA and p-NorEp. Moreover reduced fluorescence quenching of p-ALT film was achieved supporting its application as coating for biosensors, organic semiconductors and new nanocomposite materials.

Investigation of tape flexures for space borne deployable structures

Space exploration arises the demand for launching large size structures to satisfy the need of high bandwidth telecommunication, earth observation and deep space interplanetary missions. Launching of these monolithic structures of sizes 3 m or more are not feasible due to limited launch fairing space of state-of-the-art launch vehicles. Therefore, the development of innovative deployment mechanisms is need of the hour. Deployment process of space borne deployable systems is the process of transition from mechanism to structure which is one of the unreliable stage due to existence of many conventional rotary joints which causes loss of energy due to backlash, friction and misalignment. An investigation study is presented in this paper for churning out a solution of flexible hinges using tape springs in state-of-the-art space deployable configurations which eliminates the factors causing loss of energy. Analytical and experimental methods are evaluated for investigating the bending behaviour of tape flexures. Tape flexures demonstrate to be a suitable candidate for compliant deployable configuration. The proposed configuration with combination of two tape flexures mounted in such a way that concave curve of each tape faces each other are structurally analysed for desired rotation angle. A comparison study is carried out for various material options of single and double layered tape flexures proposed for a flexure hinge. Practical feasibility of the proposed configuration is also demonstrated successfully on space borne deployable structures.