A "learning system" possesses the capability to improve its performance over time by interacting with its environment. A learning control system is designed so that its "learning controller" has the ability to improve the performance of the closed-loop system by generating command inputs to the plant and utilizing feedback information ...

A survey of 411 household heads was undertaken in Gokwe district, Zimbabwe, to assess villagers' knowledge, practices and perceptions about malaria and their implications for malaria control. Our results show that although the government has sustained an annual indoor insecticide spraying programme for over four decades, about 50% of respondents ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the state of disaster readiness of poison control centers, a survey questionnaire was sent to all 96 institutional poison control center members of the American Association of Poison Control Centers in the US, both certified and noncertified programs. DESIGN: The data reported are the results and responses ...

The authors report on a newly developed data base program for strabismus patients. All relevant preoperative and postoperative information regarding visual sensory data, motility, squinting angle in nine fields of gaze and head position are easily entered into the data base. The program flows easily through data collection. Its use ...

The control of the efficiency and the results of iodisation programs can be done clinically, biochemically and by monitoring the side-effects. Clinical improvement (disappearance of all the manifestations of iodine deficiency disease) is the most important end-point. However, some manifestations may persist for life, and so clinical improvement may require ...

Insecticide impregnated bed nets are being tested in many tropical areas as a major tool to control malaria. In a few African countries, there is a history of local bed net production and use, while in most others, ownership of commercially-produced nets is rare due to high costs relative to ...

As part of a program to integrate schistosomiasis control into the primary health care system in northern Cameroon, an unexpected opportunity to undertake a controlled evaluation of the impact of interventions was recognized. Inadvertently, a large part of Mindjil, one of four assessment villages, had been essentially excluded from the ...

The objective of this work was to define criteria that could be applied to achieve faster, more economical, and accurate assessment of vector populations for control of dengue viruses. During 1989-1990, 1,349 premises were surveyed in Townsville, Charters Towers and Mingela/Ravenswood, Queensland, Australia. In each locality, 1.9-8.4% of premises contained ...

Aedes albopictus is a serious nuisance species and a potential vector of domestic arboviruses in the U.S. Public health and mosquito control agencies have taken numerous actions to address the problems posed by this species. Federally mandated programs of disinsection and inspection of tire casings imported into the U.S. are ...

Between 1991 and 1994, an intervention program with permethrin- and lambdacyhalothrin-impregnated bed nets was carried out over a period of nine months in each of five endemic, malarious areas of Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. This program was evaluated through household surveys, blood sampling, in-depth longitudinal studies, and entomologic analysis. Eighty-four ...

Tuberculosis (TB) rates declined steadily for decades in the United States, but several complex social and medical factors caused TB morbidity to increase 14% from 1985 through 1993. The recent increases in TB morbidity have placed additional demands on state and local TB control programs, which already had been substantially ...

A genetic algorithm for instrumentation control and optimization was developed using the LabVIEW graphical programming environment. The usefulness of this methodology for the optimization of a closed loop control instrument is demonstrated with minimal complexity and the programming is presented in detail to facilitate its adaptation to other LabVIEW applications. ...

In spite of the success achieved by the theory of reasoned action, researchers continue to suggest that new components should be added to the original model. Indeed, Ajzen has himself acknowledged that some behaviours may be subject to control problems and thus proposed the theory of planned behaviour to handle ...

The California State Mussel Watch program is a long-term monitoring program conducted by the State Water Resources Control Board and the Department of Fish and Game. In a fifteen year time span, from 1977-1992, mussels were collected at 378 stations. From these stations, 47 were chosen to conduct statistical analysis ...

Two pools of lyophilized human control serum, distributed as challenges for the 1990 and 1991 College of American Pathologists Comprehensive Chemistry Surveys were employed consecutively as two-level, daily, quality control materials in College of American Pathologists Quality Assurance Service Regional Quality Control programs. Because the Chemistry Survey and Quality Assurance ...

To evaluate the incremental effectiveness of a worksite cholesterol control management program when added to an established, comprehensive health promotion program at the worksite, we conducted a randomized, controlled trial including both blue- and white-collar employees at four geographically dispersed worksites. One hundred twenty-seven employees with serum cholesterol levels of ...

Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, with a population of 146 million people. The socioeconomic development and the distribution of population and health services varies widely within the country. There are approximately 1.2 million hospital admissions per month, 80% of them paid by a government healthcare program that ...

This paper investigates a neurocontroller for nonminimum phase systems which is trained off-line with genetic algorithm (GA) and is combined in parallel with a conventional linear controller of proportional plus integral plus derivative (PID) type. Training of this kind of a neuro-genetic controller provides a solution under a given global ...

A national quality control program for blood gas analysers has been established in France since 1983. Buffer solutions are used at two levels of pH, Po2, Pco2 for testing 950 laboratories using 22 different models. These annual programs inform about the accuracy and the precision of the instruments. They also ...

In Brazil, the use of biological vector-control methods has been largely confined to experimental research, with little or no application of such techniques by public institutions responsible for implementing control programs. The notable exceptions have been the black fly control program carried out by the Health Secretariat in the State ...

The program and the arrangement for a versatile, computer-controlled flow injection analysis system is described. A resident program (which can be run simultaneously and complementary to any other program) controls (on/off, speed, direction) a pump and a pneumatic valve (emptying and filling position). The system was designed to be simple ...

We developed a computer system for infection control education utilizing multimedia including video presentation. To evaluate the efficiency of the system, trial sessions were held among dental students attending final year of clinical courses. According to our results of comparison between pre and post assessment tests among these students, we ...

Most dengue/DHF endemic countries have facilities for the training of entomologists. However, experience has shown that many of the graduates of such courses remain in the area of research and relatively few are employed in Aedes aegypti vector-control programmes. Few university courses in medical entomology provide specific training in vector ...

The authors argue that the classic hierarchy of industrial hygiene controls may be successfully used to control TB. Various elements of hygiene control programs reviewed here include TB exposure control programs, identification and isolation of patients, respiratory isolation, local source capture ventilation, laboratory procedures, employee surveillance programs, reporting of occupational ...

The interrelationships of coping responses, self-control and trait anxiety in Israeli university students during the 1991 Gulf war were investigated. Respondents (35 male and 58 female students) responded to a battery of questionnaires at the end of the war to assess these variables. Their responses, which referred to the sealed ...

This study assessed the effects of associative and dissociative psychological strategies of attention on heart rate and self-report ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) during cycling performance. Seven trained cyclists performed a control ride, a dissociation ride, and an association ride on a bicycle ergometer at a work rate corresponding to ...

The paper introduces the use of a visual programming environment (LabVIEW) to program custom control functions for bioprocess research. The time taken for a bioprocess scientist to program new functions compared well with typical times expected for experienced programmers using conventional languages. Experienced LabVIEW programmers will develop applications significantly faster. ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of an educational program for the prevention of catheter colonization. DESIGN: Two cross-sectional studies were carried out in a 500-bed randomly selected area of the hospital, separated by an educational program on the care of intravenous lines based on the Centers for Disease Control and ...

We constructed a battery-powered backpack aspirator to collect adult Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. This simple, easily constructed aspirator facilitates the indoor collection of this important vector species. The collections made with the aspirator provide useful information about the biology and behavior of Ae. aegypti that can be used in education and ...

OBJECTIVE: Blood glucose awareness training (BGAT) has been found effective in teaching individuals with insulin-requiring diabetes to improve their ability to better recognize blood glucose (BG) fluctuations. This study investigated whether subjects who underwent BGAT a mean of 4.9 years previously were superior to past control subjects in terms of ...

As applied to vector-borne disease control, the term community participation has been broadly interpreted. Community-based vector control projects have been described as having both active and passive components. Recently, community participation in organized efforts to control Chagas' disease has become more dynamic, with increasingly active involvement by local community members. ...

A program for matching between controlled medical vocabularies has been developed which adopts methods used in the domain of Information Retrieval. This program combines a stemmer based on fragments of words (digrams) with a similarity function. The proposed stemmer did not require any knowledge about word-formation rules and helped the ...

The long-term efficacy of a program to control methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was evaluated in a 350-bed university hospital. Three periods were monitored: pre-epidemic (January 1989-November 1989), outbreak (December 1989-June 1990) and control program (July 1990-December 1992) periods. Control measures included cohort isolation, patient care measures and therapy (oral cotrimoxazole ...

An integrated approach for the control of mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit will better enable sustainable control while helping to circumvent some of the problems associated with the use of conventional insecticides. Environmental methods and biological control are alternatives to chemical control and are key components of the integrated ...

Dengue viruses are maintained in endemic transmission cycles in tropical urban areas where epidemics periodically occur. Until about 30 years ago, there were long intervals (10-40 years) between epidemics but they are now occurring in many areas at 3-5-year intervals. These epidemics are most likely caused by virus strains with ...

A sharply rising incidence of salmonellosis in humans caused by Salmonella enteritidis (SE) in the United States between 1985 and 1989 resulted in a government-sponsored outbreak traceback program which was started in 1990. Layer flocks considered the sources of egg-implicated outbreaks would be tested for SE and the eggs from ...

An investigation was conducted of a severe flea infestation in Holstein dairy calves. Inspection of the dairy revealed hundreds of cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis, on 23 calves, and thousands of fleas in the barn where the calves were housed. During the investigation, > 92,000 fleas were collected from the barn. ...

The value of seroepidemiology in malaria control programs has long been recognized, but its use in such situations has been limited. We therefore conducted a seroepidemiologic study in a frontier community on Palawan Island, The Philippines, an area where malaria is highly endemic. The first serologic survey was done at ...

Inadvertent instrument flight rules (IFR) encounters are some of the most harrying conditions a pilot can experience. They also result in the highest percentage of death from helicopter crashes. Yet, inadvertent IFR can be prevented to some degree, and if encountered, it can be conquered and survived. Pilots must have ...

The principal vector of malaria in eastern Venezuela, Anopheles aquasalis, is exophagic and exophilic. Control using indoor insecticide house sprays has failed to lower the number of malaria cases. Therefore, studies were initiated in two villages of the eastern coastal state of Sucre to better understand this vector's biology and ...

The development of the nervous system can be studied only if the age of the embryo is exactly known. Since it is difficult to control reproduction in female cats, we tried to time fertilization very precisely to within one hour by using either artificial insemination, or by mating females in ...

A computer program (MetaCon) is described for the evaluation of flux control, concentration control and branch-point distribution control coefficients of a metabolic pathway. Requiring only the reaction scheme as input, the program produces algebraic expressions for the control coefficients in terms of elasticity coefficients, metabolite concentrations and pathway fluxes. Any ...

The role of response expectancy in bringing about increases in hypnotic susceptibility by use of the Carleton Skill Training Program (CSTP) was assessed with 27 subjects selected for their low hypnotizability scores. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 13 received the CSTP to increase their hypnotic susceptibility, ...

In this study, I investigated differences in self-esteem, self-acceptance, masculinity, femininity, and locus of control among sample populations of men, including scientists, other professionals, college students, mental health clients, and perpetrators of domestic violence. The Personal Orientation Inventory (Shostrom, 1974), Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966), and Bem ...

D.H. Nguyen and B. Widrow (1990) demonstrated that a feedforward neural network can be trained to steer a tractor-trailer truck to a dock while backing up. The feedforward network they used to control the truck contained 25 hidden units and required extensive training. The authors demonstrate that a very simple ...

The four major phases of the malaria control program in Papua New Guinea are briefly described. Routine indicators utilized during Phases II and III (the periods when residual indoor spraying was used) are presented and their limitations outlined. The new epidemiological indicators developed during Phase IV and now included in ...

Long-term care facilities have only recently begun to receive attention in the area of infection control. A training program was developed in Nebraska to help supply practitioners with knowledge and techniques designed specifically for the long-term care environment. This program's success led to its implementation in other regions. The regional ...

BACKGROUND: Few affordable training opportunities are specifically designed for the long-term care facility infection control practitioner. There is also little evidence of the success of training in improving infection control practices. The Nebraska Infection Control Network developed a 2-day basic skills training program for Midwestern long-term care facility infection control ...

Rationales for the design and implementation of infectious disease control programs include protecting the health of patients and staff, reducing the risk of vulnerability in litigation, and complying with the regulatory environment that mandates such programs. The development and implementation of a comprehensive infectious disease control program is not a ...

Applications of niclosamide at three-monthly intervals were undertaken for 14 years in foci of Biomphalaria glabrata in the water sources of Peri-Peri (Capim Branco, MG). All the residents of the area were submitted to an annual fecal examination (Kato/Katz) and those individuals eliminating Schistosoma mansoni eggs were treated with oxamniquine. ...