The goal of asset management is to identify and track the maintenance and replacement of assets that have reached their useful life. For that reason, gathering data and collecting information is a critical step when d...The goal of asset management is to identify and track the maintenance and replacement of assets that have reached their useful life. For that reason, gathering data and collecting information is a critical step when developing an asset management plan. Such data gathering includes physical and operational properties of the assets as well as collecting and tracking important events during the lifespan of the asset (i.e., pipe breaks, replacement year, maintenance performed, etc.). Critical factors in the asset management plan may be overlooked when there is no data or poor quality data. However, many utilities lack the resources for examining buried infrastructure and lack good quality work order data, so other methods of data collection are needed. The concept for this paper was to develop a means to acquire data on the assets for a condition assessment to identify pipes that were most likely to break and those with the highest consequences for same. Three utilities were used as examples. It was found that for buried infrastructure, much more information was known than anticipated but the actual predictions relied on only a few factors related to pipe type. However, there is a need to track the consequences, in this case breaks, which would indicate a failure. The latter would be useful for predicting future maintenance needs and the most at-risk assets, but is often missing in utility systems as many utilities do not adequately track breaks sufficiently. In this case two utilities were analyzed and predication on a third was developed.展开更多
Title: The Effect on Physician Interpretation After Ultrasound Video Transmis-sion. Objective: There is a limited amount of qualified sonographers, which is problematic to rural, and prehospital settings that require ...Title: The Effect on Physician Interpretation After Ultrasound Video Transmis-sion. Objective: There is a limited amount of qualified sonographers, which is problematic to rural, and prehospital settings that require clinical ultrasound. One solution is the use of telemedicine to transmit ultrasound videos to a distant expert. Our objective was to determine the effect of video image transfer using Skype on physician image interpretation. Methods: Three emergency medicine physicians of varied ultrasound proficiency were given 72 pairs of transmitted and non-transmitted ultrasound video clips in random order. Raters were instructed to determine whether ultrasound clips were positive or negative for pathology. Same interpretations between video pairs were categorized as homodiagnostic while different interpretations were categorized as heterodiagnostic. Raters were also asked to rate the image resolution, image detail, and total image quality using a 10-point Likert scale. For the diagnostic results, rater agreement, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were calculated. Results: The raters collectively demonstrated high agreement (92.1%), sensitivity (96.3%), specificity (92.8%), and accuracy (94.1%). Raters 1 (95.8%, κ = 0.912) and 3 (97.2%, κ = 0.942) had near perfect agreement, while rater 2 (83.3%, κ = 0.666) had substantial agreement. Only raters 1 and 3 detected a decrease in image resolution, image detail, and total image quality (p Conclusions: This study demonstrates that transmission via Skype has minimal effect on a physician’s interpretation of an ultrasound video. The implications of these results are that ultrasound video transmission can be used to improve access to specialists without compromising accuracy which will ultimately increase patients’ quality of care.展开更多
文摘The goal of asset management is to identify and track the maintenance and replacement of assets that have reached their useful life. For that reason, gathering data and collecting information is a critical step when developing an asset management plan. Such data gathering includes physical and operational properties of the assets as well as collecting and tracking important events during the lifespan of the asset (i.e., pipe breaks, replacement year, maintenance performed, etc.). Critical factors in the asset management plan may be overlooked when there is no data or poor quality data. However, many utilities lack the resources for examining buried infrastructure and lack good quality work order data, so other methods of data collection are needed. The concept for this paper was to develop a means to acquire data on the assets for a condition assessment to identify pipes that were most likely to break and those with the highest consequences for same. Three utilities were used as examples. It was found that for buried infrastructure, much more information was known than anticipated but the actual predictions relied on only a few factors related to pipe type. However, there is a need to track the consequences, in this case breaks, which would indicate a failure. The latter would be useful for predicting future maintenance needs and the most at-risk assets, but is often missing in utility systems as many utilities do not adequately track breaks sufficiently. In this case two utilities were analyzed and predication on a third was developed.
文摘Title: The Effect on Physician Interpretation After Ultrasound Video Transmis-sion. Objective: There is a limited amount of qualified sonographers, which is problematic to rural, and prehospital settings that require clinical ultrasound. One solution is the use of telemedicine to transmit ultrasound videos to a distant expert. Our objective was to determine the effect of video image transfer using Skype on physician image interpretation. Methods: Three emergency medicine physicians of varied ultrasound proficiency were given 72 pairs of transmitted and non-transmitted ultrasound video clips in random order. Raters were instructed to determine whether ultrasound clips were positive or negative for pathology. Same interpretations between video pairs were categorized as homodiagnostic while different interpretations were categorized as heterodiagnostic. Raters were also asked to rate the image resolution, image detail, and total image quality using a 10-point Likert scale. For the diagnostic results, rater agreement, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were calculated. Results: The raters collectively demonstrated high agreement (92.1%), sensitivity (96.3%), specificity (92.8%), and accuracy (94.1%). Raters 1 (95.8%, κ = 0.912) and 3 (97.2%, κ = 0.942) had near perfect agreement, while rater 2 (83.3%, κ = 0.666) had substantial agreement. Only raters 1 and 3 detected a decrease in image resolution, image detail, and total image quality (p Conclusions: This study demonstrates that transmission via Skype has minimal effect on a physician’s interpretation of an ultrasound video. The implications of these results are that ultrasound video transmission can be used to improve access to specialists without compromising accuracy which will ultimately increase patients’ quality of care.
