Integral resource capacity planning for inpatient care services based on bed census predictions by hour

The design and operations of inpatient care facilities are typically largely historically shaped. A better match with the changing environment is often possible, and even inevitable due to the pressure on hospital budgets. Effectively organizing inpatient care requires simultaneous consideration of several interrelated planning issues. Also, coordination with upstream departments like the operating theatre and the emergency department is much-needed. We present a generic analytical approach to predict bed census on nursing wards by hour, as a function of the Master Surgical Schedule and arrival patterns of emergency patients. Along these predictions, insight is gained on the impact of strategic (ie, case mix, care unit size, care unit partitioning), tactical (ie, allocation of operating room time, misplacement rules), and operational decisions (ie, time of admission/discharge). The method is used in the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam as a decision-support tool in a complete redesign of the inpatient care operations.     

Ein neues Vacuummeter

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Comment on two-dimensional variable-range hopping conduction in group IV amorphous elemental semiconductors

The temperature T and thickness t dependence of the d.c. conductivity σ in very thin films of amorphous germanium, silicon and carbon is discussed. It is shown that a simple two-dimensional variable-range hopping model in a homogeneous medium cannot account for the experimental results, although the predicted $\text{T}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>?</mtext><mtext>1</mtext><mtext>3</mtext>}}$ dependence of ?n σ is often observed. The consequences of this result for hopping transport in group IV amorphous semiconductors are pointed out.     

The analysis of phosphorus and chlorine in natural waters by alpha-particle activation

Using activation by 16 MeV α-particles quantitative analysis has been carried out for P and Cl in natural waters with a reproducibility of ±5%. Limits of detection of 0.1 and 0.4 ppm were obtained for the two elements, respectively. The method is applied to the determination of P and Cl in water samples taken in the environment of Amsterdam.     

Accelerator based techniques for trace element analysis on the micrometer scale

Summary Accelerators, capable of producing beams of ions up to several MeV are frequently used for (micro-)analytical purposes. In the majority of cases, the activities are centered around an accelerator previously exclusively used for studies in nuclear physics; but recently, at a number of laboratories completely dedicated analytical accelerators have been installed. In this paper an overview is given of the analytical possibilities opened up with the availability of these ion beams.