Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Systems Integration”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 991 records · Page 55Linked to original sources
PubMed2005

Reducing CO2 emissions and energy consumption of heat-integrated distillation systems.

Distillation systems are energy and power intensive processes and contribute significantly to the greenhouse gases emissions (e.g. carbon dioxide). Reducing CO2 emissions is an absolute necessity and expensive challenge to the chemical process industries in orderto meetthe environmental targets as agreed in the Kyoto Protocol. A simple model for the calculation of CO2 emissions from heat-integrated distillation systems is introduced, considering typical process industry utility devices such as boilers, furnaces, and turbines. Furnaces and turbines consume large quantities of fuels to provide electricity and process heats. As a result, they produce considerable amounts of CO2 gas to the atmosphere. Boilers are necessary to supply steam for heating purposes; besides, they are also significant emissions contributors. The model is used in an optimization-based approach to optimize the process conditions of an existing crude oil atmospheric tower in order to reduce its CO2 emissions and energy demands. It is also applied to generate design options to reduce the emissions from a novel internally heat-integrated distillation column (HIDiC). A gas turbine can be integrated with these distillation systems for larger emissions reduction and further energy savings. Results show that existing crude oil installations can save up to 21% in energy and 22% in emissions, when the process conditions are optimized. Additionally, by integrating a gas turbine, the total emissions can be reduced further by 48%. Internal heat-integrated columns can be a good alternative to conventional heat pump and other energy intensive close boiling mixtures separations. Energy savings can reach up to 100% with respect to reboiler heat requirements. Emissions of these configurations are cut down by up to 83%, compared to conventional units, and by 36%, with respect to heat pump alternatives. Importantly, cost savings and more profit are gained in parallel to emissions minimization.

Air Pollution↗
PubMed1985

The effect of in vitro sperm capacitation on sperm velocity and motility as measured by an in-office, integrated, microcomputerized system for semen analysis.

The authors measured the effects of in vitro washing and capacitation on sperm velocity and motility on one hundred males, using an in-office, integrated, microcomputerized system for objective semen analysis. Sperm characteristics, including sperm velocity, percentage of motile sperm, and the motility index improved significantly following the washing procedure. Average sperm velocity increased from 19.9 microns per second in the original specimens to 26.3 mic/sec following washing (P less than 0.05), while percentage of motile sperm and the sperm motility index (MI) increased from 30% to 86% (P less than 0.01) and 6.6 to 22.5 (P less than 0.01) respectively. The most significant differences occurred in the asthenospermic subgroup, with sperm velocity increasing from 16.3 microns per second to 24.6 mic/sec (P less than .001), percentage motility increasing from 15% motility to 85% motility (P less than 0.001), and the motility index (MI) increasing from 2.4 to 21.6 (P less than 0.001). The advantage of a widely acceptable method for quantitative evaluation of semen quality is discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Cytochemical analysis of human T cell leukaemia virus I LTR-regulated beta-galactosidase gene expression using a novel integrated cell system.

To develop a reporter system to study the response of an integrated retroviral LTR and cellular and viral events which influence transcription, the 5' LTR of HTLV-1 was coupled to the Escherichia coli beta-galactosidase gene (lacZ). This construct was assembled within a vector containing the neomycin resistance gene controlled by the SV40 promoter, and introduced into HeLa cells. Expression from the LTR in one clone was upregulated by positive regulators of HTLV-1 expression, including 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) and the HTLV-1 transregulatory protein (tax), as has been previously reported using transient transfection assays. This method proved to be a rapid and reproducible assay for the measurement of integrated viral LTR activation in a single cell system.

Escherichia coli↗
PubMed2002

Integration of service systems for homeless persons with serious mental illness through the ACCESS program. Access to Community Care and Effective Services and Supports.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the first of the two core questions around which the ACCESS (Access to Community Care and Effective Services and Supports) evaluation was designed: Does implementation of system-change strategies lead to better integration of service systems? METHODS: The study was part of the five-year federal ACCESS service demonstration program, which sought to enhance integration of service delivery systems for homeless persons with serious mental illness. Data were gathered from nine randomly selected experimental sites and nine comparison sites in 15 of the nation's largest cities on the degree to which each site implemented a set of systems integration strategies and the degree of systems integration that ensued among community agencies across five service sectors: mental health, substance abuse, primary care, housing, and social welfare and entitlement services. Integration was measured across all interorganizational relationships in the local service networks (overall systems integration) and across relationships involving only the primary ACCESS grantee organization (project-centered integration). RESULTS: Contrary to expectations, the nine experimental sites did not demonstrate significantly greater overall systems integration than the nine comparison sites. However, the experimental sites demonstrated better project-centered integration than the comparison sites. Moreover, more extensive implementation of strategies for system change was associated with higher levels of overall systems integration as well as project-centered integration at both the experimental sites and the comparison sites. CONCLUSIONS: The ACCESS demonstration was successful in terms of project-centered integration but not overall system integration.

Community Mental Health Services↗
PubMed2002

[Heart assist systems with integrated microsensors (HIM 2)].

The use of intracardiac pump systems is leading to more physiological support for coronary surgery patients. But the currently available micro blood pump with an integrated micro pressure sensor and an outer diameter of 6.5 mm is not suitable for a transfemoral placement of the device. Therefore a significantly smaller pump with an outer diameter of 4 mm (12F) is been developed and tested. To transfer the sensor technology in this, for the first time the MID (moulded interconnected device) technology is applied in a medical device. In a first step MID is used to integrate a smaller pressure sensor on the existing blood pump. The result should help to find a new packaging and connecting solution for integration of the miniaturized sensor on the 4 mm pump.

Assisted Circulation↗
PubMed1999

Background on the system of integral evaluation of human exposure to toxic substances in the work and municipal environments.

Exposure to toxic chemicals in the work, natural and home environments is recognised as combined exposure. The system of integral evaluation of human exposure should take account of all toxic substances occurring in all environmental media (air, water, soil and food), and all routes through which they enter the human body. To provide the integral evaluation it is necessary to develop different exposure scenarios based on dose intake or derived values. Following the toxicological criteria, calculated exposure indicators, after their standardisation and aggregation, should be converted into combined exposure indices. The index value will reflect the level of combined exposure.

Environmental Monitoring↗
PubMed1992

A bidirectional ACR-NEMA interface between the VA's DHCP Integrated Imaging System and the Siemens-Loral PACS.

There is a wide range of requirements for digital hospital imaging systems. Radiology needs very high resolution black and white images. Other diagnostic disciplines need high resolution color imaging capabilities. Images need to be displayed in many locations throughout the hospital. Different imaging systems within a hospital need to cooperate in order to show the whole picture. At the Baltimore VA Medical Center, the DHCP Integrated Imaging System and a commercial Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) work in concert to provide a wide-range of departmental and hospital-wide imaging capabilities. An interface between the DHCP and the Siemens-Loral PACS systems enables patient text and image data to be passed between the two systems. The interface uses ACR-NEMA 2.0 Standard messages extended with shadow groups based on draft ACR-NEMA 3.0 prototypes. A Novell file server, accessible to both systems via Ethernet, is used to communicate all the messages. Patient identification information, orders, ADT, procedure status, changes, patient reports, and images are sent between the two systems across the interface. The systems together provide an extensive set of imaging capabilities for both the specialist and the general practitioner.

Data Display↗
PubMed2000

Management of integrated delivery systems in the next decade.

In an attempt to find some remedies within what is already a highly competitive and politically charged environment, this article's purpose is to specify some major steps that the management of integrated delivery systems might heed in the next decade to curtail their expenditures and better position themselves for the future.

Cost Control↗
PubMed1997

Physician practice management companies: implications for hospital-based integrated delivery systems.

Physician practice management companies (PPMCs) are one of the most visible entrants into the industry of managing physician practices, and anywhere from 100-150 are already in operation. Although PPMCs and hospital-based integrated delivery systems (IDSs) differ from each other in many ways, they share a number of common features, including the pursuit of capitation contracts from payors. As a result, PPMCs pose a growing, direct threat to hospital systems in competing for managed care contracts that cover physician service. PPMCs also provide an alternative to hospital-based IDSs at the local market level for physician group consolidation. This article looks at the structure, operation, and strategy of PPMCs and examines what implications their growth will have for hospital-based IDSs.

Capital Financing↗
PubMed1998

Issues in identification and linkage of patient records across an integrated delivery system.

Historically, the health information systems community has viewed linking personal records as a mundane task. The oversimplified view that routine database manipulation can accurately identify multiple records for a single individual is erroneous, an assumption based on a misperception of the quality of the underlying data. Such data have been adversely affected by the evolution of individual facility patient indexes from multiple systems and the results of backload procedures, and the lack of focus on the need for data integrity by users of the automated systems. Much of the random, invalid data we identify on a daily basis is directly associated with the need for system users to place data in the patient record while they face the situation of having no obvious data field in which to place them. Combined with an underlying lack of standards for the collection of personal identification information, this results in pure chaos when reviewing an MPI file containing a million records at the start of a linkage evaluation project. We have documented the considerable effort that must therefore be made in standardizing the MPI files using stringent analytical procedures and applying common edit routines before commencing record linkage. This preprocessing effort must then be supplemented with sophisticated matching procedures that can handle the dual challenge of minimizing false negatives (the failure to identify true linkages) and false positives (the incorrect linking of records that do not represent the same person). The identification of pairs of linked records does not, however, complete an EPI loading. Because it is fairly common for a multiple facility linkage evaluation to identify more than two medical record numbers for the same patient, and the primary goal of an EPI is to assign a unique identifier for the patient which will link that patient's multiple files, it becomes necessary to develop a means of readily associating three or more records for the same patient. One approach we have used with great success is to assign a common, sequential identification number to all linked medical record numbers for the same patient regardless of facility. The assignment of linkage identification numbers is computer-intensive and is generally accomplished with a highly iterative process. Both system memory and hard disk resources are fully tested as the number of good linkages in an overlap evaluation reaches the half-million mark or greater. Because the primary linkage analysis goal is to develop linkages on pairs of records, with confidence levels based on the comparison of information for those two records, thresholds must be set to decide which linkages should be accepted as true without any human evaluation. If the threshold is set too low, the defined linkage groups may incorrectly join the medical record numbers for different persons. But if the threshold is set too high, there will be undesired duplication of persons in the enterprise system. As in the identification of the underlying linkage pairs, the development of a confidence measure greatly facilitates the assignment of the unique identification numbers needed in the EPI implementation.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2026

Liquid biopsy-based detection of circulating and exfoliated cholangiocarcinoma tumor cells from blood and bile using heparan sulfate octasaccharides on integrated microfluidic systems.

Early diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) remains challenging because existing diagnostic approaches often lack sufficient sensitivity for reliable detection of early-stage disease. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood and exfoliated tumor cells (ETCs) in bile represent valuable targets for liquid biopsy-based detection; however, their low abundance and the complexity of clinical sample analysis pose substantial technical challenges for reliable enrichment and identification. Herein, we present a reproducible workflow for isolating and identifying CCA tumor cells from blood for CTCs and bile for ETCs using synthetic cell-surface heparan sulfate (HS) octasaccharide-functionalized magnetic beads (MBs) on integrated microfluidic systems. The method combined sample pre-processing, magnetic bead-based enrichment, controlled low-shear mixing and immunofluorescence-based identification into a unified workflow compatible with distinct clinical sample types. Key operational parameters, including MB concentration, mixing frequency, and pressure settings, were detailed to facilitate consistent performance. Using this workflow, tumor cell capture rates of approximately 70% in bile (for ETCs) and blood (for CTCs) were achieved, with a total processing time of 60-90 min per sample under clinically relevant low-abundance conditions. The platform enables reliable detection of as few as 1 tumor cell per mL of blood or bile. This method provides a practical and adaptable strategy for glycosaminoglycan-mediated liquid biopsy applications and may be extended to other tumor-cell enrichment workflows involving heterogeneous cell-surface interactions.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

GeneWays: a system for extracting, analyzing, visualizing, and integrating molecular pathway data.

The immense growth in the volume of research literature and experimental data in the field of molecular biology calls for efficient automatic methods to capture and store information. In recent years, several groups have worked on specific problems in this area, such as automated selection of articles pertinent to molecular biology, or automated extraction of information using natural-language processing, information visualization, and generation of specialized knowledge bases for molecular biology. GeneWays is an integrated system that combines several such subtasks. It analyzes interactions between molecular substances, drawing on multiple sources of information to infer a consensus view of molecular networks. GeneWays is designed as an open platform, allowing researchers to query, review, and critique stored information.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed2004

Analysis of an optical depth converter used in a three-dimensional integral imaging system.

An optical depth converter that uses a lens array pair is analyzed theoretically and experimentally. We present a theory of depth conversion and explain the effects of the system parameters in the optical depth converter by using wave-optical analysis. Ray-optical analysis is applied to the investigation of the tendencies of the system parameter effects. We also show that the optical depth converter can be used for the three-dimensional screen in projection-type integral imaging systems.

Computer Graphics↗
PubMed1993

Decrease in peritonitis rate by integrated disconnect system in patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis.

The prevention of peritonitis is of major concern for successful long-term continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) treatment. The effect of a Y-system on peritonitis incidence and patient morbidity was observed in a comparative, retrospective single-center analysis over a period of 5 years. The integrated disconnect system prolonged the peritonitis-free period from 1:11 patient-months, observed with the conventional system, to greater than 1:50 patient-months. The rate of hospitalization was reduced by 45%.

Humans↗
PubMed1992

Characteristics and health service utilization patterns of ventilator-dependent patients cared for within a vertically integrated health system.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the characteristics and service utilization patterns of long-term ventilator-dependent patients. DESIGN: Using medical records, a cohort of ventilator-dependent patients was identified and followed. SETTING: A vertically integrated healthcare system in southwestern Pennsylvania. PATIENTS: Forty-nine adults requiring prolonged ventilatory assistance. MEASURES: Demographics, admission date, admission diagnosis, discharge diagnosis, reason for ventilator dependency, level of care to which the patient was admitted, dates of all transfer orders, dates of all transfers between levels of care, discharge destination and subsequent readmissions. RESULTS: The major reason for long-term ventilator dependency was progressive debilitating disease of either a pulmonary or nonpulmonary nature. The mean length of stay within the system was 72.6 days +/- 42.55 (median = 59 days, range = 24 to 267 days). Patients had an average of 3.3 transfers +/- 2.53 within the system (median = 3, range = 0 to 10). No delays in transfer to lower levels of care were found. Health utilization variables were largely unrelated to reason for ventilator dependency. Almost half of the patients (n = 24 or 49.0%) died in the system. Patients who died in the system were significantly older than patients for whom discharge home was possible. CONCLUSIONS: Additional studies are necessary to describe the prevalence, etiology, health status and functional status of ventilator patients at all levels of care; the impact of different system approaches on patient well-being and cost of care; and the process of medical decision making. Economic analyses of costs and outcomes for ventilator-dependent patients using a cost-utility approach are also needed.

Acute Disease↗