Review: update on performance assessment and monitoring systems for ophthalmologists

Performance assessment and monitoring systems are the process by which ophthalmologists demonstrate they are fit to continue practicing.Revalidation is the process by which licensed doctors are legally required to demonstrate to medical regulators that they are up to date and fit to practice in order to maintain their medical license,and began in the United Kingdom(UK)in 2012 following well-publicized events.Recertification is a different process which began in North America and demonstrates doctors have maintained competence,without involvement of external stakeholders.Arguments for and against the concept of performance assessment are reviewed.Stakeholders in performance assessment,whether part of the process or not,are doctors themselves,peers and other health care providers,patients,hospitals and health systems,medical regulators,and health policy makers.Early models of performance assessment included portfolios,credit accumulation,and closed-book examinations.Models are in evolution with the value of formative rather than summative assessments,and the need for methods of assessing procedural competency increasingly recognized.Emerging methods of performance assessment of practicing ophthalmologists include use of performance indicators,simulation,and workplace-based assessments.Alternate methods of assuring the public by improved detection of outliers are discussed.Despite weak evidence supporting performance assessments in demonstrating continuing competency to practice,the process is gradually being accepted worldwide.Further research into optimum methods of performance assessment and monitoring processes is required,along with cost-benefit analysis.

Assessment of Operational Performance in a Power Generation/Selling Integrated Company Using a Dynamic Proportional Adjustment Coefficient

Currently,the operational performance assessment system in the power market primarily focuses on power generation and electricity retail companies,lacking a system tailored to the operational characteristics of power generation/selling integrated companies.Therefore,this article proposes an assessment index system for assessing the operational performance of a power generation/selling integrated company,encompassing three dimensions:basic capacity,development potential,and external environment.A dynamic proportional adjustment coefficient is designed,along with a subjective and objective weighting model for assessment indexes based on a combined weightingmethod.Subsequently,the operational performance of an integrated company is assessed using extension theory.The results in the case study demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed dynamic proportional adjustment coefficient.

Energy performance assessment on central air-conditioning system of commercial building: A case study in China

Energy performance assessment on central air-conditioning system is essential to optimize operating, reduce operating costs, improve indoor environmental quality, and determine whether the retrofitting of the equipment is necessary. But it is difficult to evaluate it reasonably and comprehensively due to its complexity. A "holistic" approach was discussed to evaluate the energy performance of central air-conditioning system for an extra-large commercial building in a subtropical city. All procedures were described in detail, including field investigation method, field measurement instruments, data processing and data analyzing. The main factors affecting energy consumption of air-conditioning system were analyzed and the annual cooling-energy use intensity of this building was calculated and also compared with other shopping malls and other types of buildings in Guangzhou. And COP(coefficient of performance) of chiller, water transfer factor of chilled water system and cooling water system were taken into consideration. At last, the thermal comfort and indoor air quality issues were addressed. The results show that the chilled water pumps are over-sized and the indoor environmental quality should be improved. The purpose of this work is to provide reference for energy performance assessment method for air-conditioning system.

A Pragmatic Approach for Assessing the Economic Performance of Model Predictive Control Systems and Its Industrial Application

In this article,an approach for economic performance assessment of model predictive control(MPC) system is presented.The method builds on steady-state economic optimization techniques and uses the linear quadratic Gaussian(LQG) benchmark other than conventional minimum variance control(MVC) to estimate the potential of reduction in variance.The LQG control is a more practical performance benchmark compared to MVC for performance assessment since it considers input variance and output variance,and it thus provides a desired basis for determining the theoretical maximum economic benefit potential arising from variability reduction.Combining the LQG benchmark directly with benefit potential of MPC control system,both the economic benefit and the optimal operation condition can be obtained by solving the economic optimization problem.The proposed algorithm is illustrated by simulated example as well as application to economic performance assessment of an industrial model predictive control system.

Multivariable Control Performance Assessment Based on Generalized Minimum Variance Benchmark

This paper is concerned with the control performance assessment based on the multivariable generalized minimum variance benchmark.An explicit expression for the feedback controller-invariant(the generalized minimum variance)term of the multivariable control system is obtained,which is used as a standard benchmark for the assessment of the control performance for multi input multi output(MIMO)process.The proposed approach is based on the multivariable minimum variance benchmark.In comparison with the minimum variance benchmark, the developed method is more reasonable and practical for the control performance assessment of multivariable systems.The approach is illustrated by a simulation example and an industrial application.

Predictive performance of'Diprifusor'TCI system in patients during upper abdominal surgery under propofol/fentanyl anesthesia

Objective:To evaluate the predictive performance of‘Diprifusor’TCI(target-controlled infusion)system for its betterapplication in clinical anesthesia.Methods:The predictive performance of a‘Diprifusor’TCI system was investigated in 27Chinese patients(16 males and 11 females)during upper abdominal surgery under total intravenous anesthesia(TIVA)withpropofol/fentanyl.Measnred arterial propofol concentrations were compared with the values predicted by the TCI infusion system.Performance was determined by the median performance error(MDPE),the median absolute performance error(MDAPE),thedivergence(the percentage change of the absolute PE with time),and the wobble(the median absolute deviation of each PE fromthe MDPE).Results:The median(range)values of 14.9%(-21.6%～42.9%)for MDPE,23.3%(6.9%～62.5%)for MDAPE,-1.9%h^(-1)(-32.7%～23.0% h^(-1))for divergence,and 18.9%(4.2%～59.6%)for wobble were obtained from 227 samples from all patients.For the studied population,the PE did not increase with time but with increasing target propofol concentration,particularly fol-lowing induction.Conclusions:The control of depth of anaesthesia was good in all patients undergoing upper abdominal surgicaloperation and the predictive performance of the‘Diprifusor’target controlled mthsion system was considered acceptable forclinical purposes.But the relatively bigger wobble showed that the pharmacokinetic model is not so suitable and requires im-provement.

High resolution radar target adaptive detector and performance assessment

The high resolution radar target detection is addressed in the non-Gaussian clutter. An adaptive detector is derived for range-spread target based on a novel covariance matrix estimator. It is proved that the new detector is constant false alarm rate （CFAR） to both of the clutter covariance matrix structure and power level theoretically for match cases. The simulation results show that the new detector is almost CFAR for mismatch cases, and it outperforms the existing adaptive detector based on the sample covariance matrix. It also shows that the detection performance improves, as the number of pulses, the number of secondary data or the clutter spike increases. In addition, the derived detector is robust to different subsets, estimated clutter group sizes and correlations of clutter. Importantly, the number of iterations for practical application is just one.

Performance assessment of water mist applied in gas burning suppression in underground coal mine

The main objective of the present study was introduced water mist suppressiontechnology to prevent and control gas burning which occurred during drilling at Wu20160working-face in No.10 coal mine of Pingdingshan Ltd..Based on the self-developed ex-periment platform,a series of fire suppression tests to evaluate the performance of a watermist system were conducted.The detailed measurements of the spray characteristics,i.e.,the Sauter Mean Diameter(SMD),the velocity and spray angle which are the main pa-rameters considered in the Study,were obtained by using LS-2000 Sizer.The amount ofwater consumed and the water flux density distribution over the cross section downstreamthe nozzle exit were measured by cup collector method.The operating pressure of thewater mist nozzle is set to 0.5 MPa,the droplet SMD of 104 pm,the water flux density dis-tribution from 0.71 to 8.47 L/(m^2.min),the average velocity of 2.14 m/s.The experimentalresults show that the averaged time required for extinguishment is 3.14 s,and the corre-sponding amount of water used during fire test is about 0.11 kg.The gas fire suppressionsystem reduces the temperature in combustion chamber of the experimental apparatusbelow the ignition point of the gas,which can effectively avoid the occurrence of the gasfire in coal mine.

Application of a Novel Method for Machine Performance Degradation Assessment Based on Gaussian Mixture Model and Logistic Regression

The currently prevalent machine performance degradation assessment techniques involve estimating a machine＇s current condition based upon the recognition of indications of failure features,which entail complete data collected in different conditions.However,failure data are always hard to acquire,thus making those techniques hard to be applied.In this paper,a novel method which does not need failure history data is introduced.Wavelet packet decomposition（WPD） is used to extract features from raw signals,principal component analysis（PCA） is utilized to reduce feature dimensions,and Gaussian mixture model（GMM） is then applied to approximate the feature space distributions.Single-channel confidence value（SCV） is calculated by the overlap between GMM of the monitoring condition and that of the normal condition,which can indicate the performance of single-channel.Furthermore,multi-channel confidence value（MCV）,which can be deemed as the overall performance index of multi-channel,is calculated via logistic regression（LR） and that the task of decision-level sensor fusion is also completed.Both SCV and MCV can serve as the basis on which proactive maintenance measures can be taken,thus preventing machine breakdown.The method has been adopted to assess the performance of the turbine of a centrifugal compressor in a factory of Petro-China,and the result shows that it can effectively complete this task.The proposed method has engineering significance for machine performance degradation assessment.

A climatic environmental performance assessment method for ecological city construction:Application to Beijing Yanqi Lake

In contrast to the input perspective for evaluating planning metrics, this research takes the climatic environmental output effects as the starting point for assessing ecological city construction. Based on approaches such as observation data analysis, meteorological model simulation, and remote sensing, a set of climatic environmental performance assessment methods is developed and established. These methods mainly focus on surface ventilation assessment and urban thermal environment assessment. With the Yanqi Lake ecological development demonstration area located in Huairou district, Beijing as an example, the assessment of the local climatic environment before and after the construction are conducted, and relevant policy suggestions for urban planning and construction are presented. The results show that after development, the ventilation capacity will decrease overall and the ventilation potential index will decrease from 0.53 to 0.44. While this is not a large reduction, and is still at a favorable level, the ventilation potential in some local areas will markedly decrease. Furthermore, the thermal environment will become poorer to some extent; the urban heat island(UHI) area and intensity will increase compared with the current situation;continuous heat islands may occur in local areas; the UHI potential index of the core area will rise from 0.0878 to 0.1217(still a favorable level).Therefore, urban surfaces should be carefully developed and arranged during planning. It is suggested that the negative impacts of large areas of urban construction on the local climatic environment in the Yanqi Lake could be mitigated by 1) strengthening the airflow by introducing fresh,cold, northwesterly air via constructed ventilation corridors, 2) increasing the number of ecological cold sources, particularly for water bodies and green belts to prevent the UHI in the southern region of Yanqi Lake from becoming linked with each other, and 3) considering a pre-program before sub-domain and building planning to obtain optimum building locations. Different construction standards should be developed for different ventilation potential and UHI intensity levels. For strong heat island areas, land areas should be reserved to serve as cold sources.

Case study of seismic performance assessment of irregular RC buildings: hospital structure of Avezzano(L'Aquila, Italy)

Most published studies on inelastic earthquake response of non-symmetric buildings are based on simplified inelastic, highly idealized models, while general conclusions regarding the inelastic torsional response of multistory building are still lacking. This paper aims to provide a useful contribution in the study of the torsional response of real irregular buildings. To this aim, the manuscript reports the comprehensive study on the seismic vulnerability of an irregular RC building： the hospital building ofAvezzano （L＇Aquila Italy）. For this multi-story building, which is irregular in both plan and elevation, the application of nonlinear static evaluation procedures is by no means straightforward. The study proposes a nonlinear static procedure based on pushover analysis under the multimodal distribution of lateral loads and a capacity spectrum method. This pushover procedure accounts for mass distribution, higher modes contribution and mode-shapes correlation. Furthermore, due to its non-iterative feature, it avoids problems of non-convergence and multiple solutions of the conventional capacity spectrum method. Applied to a real case study, the procedure is used to investigate, in a 3D plan irregular building, the sensitivity of torsional inelastic response to lateral force distribution, higher modes contribution, accidental eccentricity and controlled point for monitoring the target displacement.

Performance Assessment of a PID Controller

Performance assessment of a proportional-integral-derivative （PID） controller is condueted using the PIDachievable minimum variance as a benchmark. When the process model is unknown, we can estimate the PID-achievable minimum variance and the corresponding parameters by routine closed-loop operation data. Simulation results show that the process output variance is reduced by retuning controller parameters.

Design strategy and comprehensive performance assessment towards Zn anode for alkaline rechargeable batteries

Alkaline Zn-based primary batteries have been commercialized in the past decades.However,their success has not been extended to secondary batteries due to the poor cycle reversibility of Zn anodes.Although some research has been conducted on alkaline Zn anodes,their performance is still far from commercial requirements.A variety of degradation mechanisms,including passivation,dendrites,morphological changes,and hydrogen precipitation,are claimed responsible for the failure of alkaline Zn metal anodes.What’s worse,these constraints always interact with each other,which leads to a single strategy being unable to suppress all the issues.Therefore,a comprehensive evaluation of the positive and negative effects of various strategies on performance is important to promote the commercialization of alkaline Zn batteries.Herein,the recent progress and performance of improvement strategies for Zn anode in alkaline conditions are reviewed systematically.First,the principles and challenges of alkaline Zn anodes are briefly analyzed.Then,various design strategies for alkaline Zn anodes from the perspectives of ion and electron regulation are highlighted.Last,through a comprehensive summary of various performance parameters,the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies are compared and evaluated.On the basis of this assessment,we aim to provide more insights into the anode design of high-performance alkaline rechargeable Zn batteries.

Seismic assessment of nature-inspired hexagrid lateral load-resisting system

This paper provides a general perspective of the seismic performance of a nature-inspired,honey-comb grid structural system,known as a hexagrid,under near-field ground motions.Seismic performance of this skeleton is then compared to that of a bundled-tube,as a conventional and efficient load-resisting system in order to provide a better perception of the seismic behavior of a hexagrid skeleton.Two 20-story buildings with bundled-tube and hexagrid skeleton were studied.Nonlinear behavior of the structures was investigated through 3-D finite element computer models and nonlinear time history analyses by subjecting the models to seven three-component records of scaled near-field ground motions.Distribution of peak inter story drift and corner beam-column joint rotations were calculated and compared.Results indicated that by replacing the exterior columns of the bundled-tube system with inclined beam-column elements of nature-inspired hexagons,lateral stiffness of the building increased and it would tolerate less deformations before global dynamic instability is reached.The presence of inclined columns in the hexagrid skeleton helped to concentrate local nonlinearities in ring beams rather than exterior columns.

Intelligent Student Mental Health Assessment Model on Learning Management System

A learning management system(LMS)is a software or web based application,commonly utilized for planning,designing,and assessing a particular learning procedure.Generally,the LMS offers a method of creating and delivering content to the instructor,monitoring students’involvement,and validating their outcomes.Since mental health issues become common among studies in higher education globally,it is needed to properly determine it to improve mental stabi-lity.This article develops a new seven spot lady bird feature selection with opti-mal sparse autoencoder(SSLBFS-OSAE)model to assess students’mental health on LMS.The major aim of the SSLBFS-OSAE model is to determine the proper health status of the students with respect to depression,anxiety,and stress(DAS).The SSLBFS-OSAE model involves a new SSLBFS model to elect a useful set of features.In addition,OSAE model is applied for the classification of mental health conditions and the performance can be improved by the use of cuckoo search optimization(CSO)based parameter tuning process.The design of CSO algorithm for optimally tuning the SAE parameters results in enhanced classifica-tion outcomes.For examining the improved classifier results of the SSLBFS-OSAE model,a comprehensive results analysis is done and the obtained values highlighted the supremacy of the SSLBFS model over its recent methods interms of different measures.

Study on Model for Assessment of Quality Management Performance of Coal Preparation Plant in CIMS

In this paper the method to calculate intangible quality cost is put forward for the first time based on the production and management characteristics of coal preparation plant. A model for assessment of quality management performance of coal preparation plant is established on the ground of quality cost. By using of CIMS integration environment the strategy to carry out the model and the application example are also offered. It provides a new and feasible way to assess performance quality management of coal preparation plant.

Cumulative gain and lift charts for model performance assessment in mineral potential mapping

Model performance assessment is a key procedure for mineral potential mapping, but the correspond-ing research achievements are seldom reported in literature. Cumulative gain and lift charts are well known in the data mining community specialized in marketing and sales applications and widely used in customer chum prediction for model performance assessment. In this paper, they are introduced into the field of mineral poten-tial mapping for model performance assessment. These two charts can be viewed as a graphic representation of the advantage of using a predictive model to choose mineral targets. A cumulative gain curve can represent how much a predictive model is superior to a random guess in mineral target prediction. A lift chart can express how much more likely the mineral targets predicted by a model are deposit-bearing ones than those by a random se-lection. As an illustration, the cumulative gain and lift charts are applied to measure the performance of weights of evidence, logistic regression,restricted Boltzmann machine, and multilayer perceptron in mineral potential mapping in the Altay district in northern Xinjiang in China. The results show that the cumulative gain and lift charts can visually reveal that the first three models perform well while the last one performs poorly. Thus, the cumulative gain and lift charts can serve as a graphic tool for model performance assessment in mineral potential mapping.

Research on the Performance Assessment Mechanism of Accurate Poverty Alleviation in Vocational Education

Vocational education is an effective way to achieve accurate poverty alleviation and get rid of intergenerational poverty.Vocational education is mainly to train skilled talents,not only to provide academic education for the children of poor families,but also to use a skill to achieve employment.It is of great necessity to implement accurate poverty alleviation in vocational education,and performance assessment is a very important part of the accurate poverty alleviation work of vocational education.This paper mainly analyzes the predicament of accurate poverty alleviation in vocational education and the problems in the construction of performance assessment system for accurate poverty alleviation in vocational education,and puts forward measures to improve the accurate poverty alleviation assessment system for vocational education and strengthen the accurate of vocational education.

Frameworks for health systems performance assessment:how comprehensive is Ghana’s holistic assessment tool?

Background:Measuring the performance of a health system is an essential requirement in creating systems that generate efficient,equitable,patient-focused,accessible and sustainable results.A fundamental requirement for a performance measurement system is the development of an assessment framework within which specific performance measures could be defined and applied regularly.This paper examines the comprehensiveness of Ghana’s health system assessment framework called the Holistic Assessment Tool in relation to some of the internationally recognized frameworks.The paper also analyzes trends in the performance of the health system to understand whether or not an improvement has been recorded following the adoption and implementation of the Holistic Assessment Tool.Methods:Mainly secondary data were used in this analysis.Searches were conducted on Google Scholar,PubMed,Scopus and Science Direct between May and July,2019 for published documents on health system performance assessment.We also obtained unpublished documents from Ghana’s Ministry of Health,Ghana Health Service website,and Ghana Statistical Service database.Descriptive statistics were used to examine trends in the performance of the Ghanaian health system.Results:While the tool provides a national framework for evaluating the performance of the Ghana Health system in several domains,the Holistic Assessment Tool does not cover key health system domains such as information systems for health,access to essential medicines,and patient-centeredness.Also,the scope of the assessment program seems limited to the evaluation of the Ministry of Health’s annual plans,programs and projects.However,the health system has recorded improvements in population health indicators,such as life expectancy at birth,infant mortality,under-5 mortality,HIV prevalence and disease burden(in terms of disability adjusted life years).Conclusions:The Holistic Assessment Tool is a useful framework,but needs further refinement,both in scope and in conceptual robustness.Future studies should consider exploring factors influencing performance of the Ghanaian health system.Such information will help in strategizing for better and more improvements.