Examining the feasibility of using a modelling tool to assess resilience across a health-care system and assist with decisions concerning service reconfiguration

Changes in medical practice, demographic shifts and financial pressures are all examples of factors that may contribute to demand for periodic changes in the configuration of health services. When reconfiguring a service, health planners often take into account projected demand for services, patient access criteria and budgetary constraints (among other things), but typically give little consideration regarding its resilience to deliver services during and after external disruptions to its capability to deliver. In this paper we discuss a study conducted in response to a direct request from the National Health Service (NHS) Resilience Project within the Department of Health to explore the feasibility of assessing resilience across local services within the NHS and developing a computer software tool to assess resilience of different service reconfigurations. We give an account of the modelling process used, including the analytical framework we developed using both optimisation and heuristic methods, and an illustrative example of usage of a prototype software tool. We also highlight the key lessons that emerged during this project, which may be helpful to OR analysts working on similar projects regarding resilience in the public sector.     

Dynamic Evasion-Interrogation Games with Uncertainty in the Context of Electromagetics

We consider two player electromagnetic evasion-pursuit games where each player must incorporate significant uncertainty into their design strategies to disguise their intension and confuse their opponent.In this paper,the evader is allowed to make dynamic changes to his strategies in response to the dynamic input with uncertainty from the interrogator.The problem is formulated in two different ways; one is based on the evolution of the probability density function of the intensity of reflected signal and leads to a controlled forward Kolmogorov or Fokker-Planck equation.The other formulation is based on the evolution of expected value of the intensity of reflected signal and leads to controlled backward Kolmogorov equations.In addition,a number of numerical results are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed approach in exploring problems of control in a general dynamic game setting.     

Volume comparison à la Aleksandrov

Sans résumé Supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.     

Rapid method for the assay of 4-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamic acid and aspartic acid in brain tissue and subcellular fractions

The thin-layer electrophoretic separation at pH 4.8 of brain extracts and a procedure for fluorescent staining of the plates with fluorescamine are described for the rapid routine determination of 4-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamic acid and aspartic acid in brain extracts and in particulate fractions of brain tissue. Automated sample application, electrophoretic separation using two chambers, and quantitation by in situ fluorescence scanning allows the assay of 280 samples within three working days. The method is reproducible (S.D. less than 8% of the mean) within the range of 0.2--2 nmole per spot. The staining procedure can be applied to a variety of related analytical problems. The method has proved useful for the determination of the specific radioactivities of GABA, glutamic acid and aspartic acid in metabolic studies.