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Long wait times not only indicate costly inefficiencies for healthcare facilities, but they also influence patient satisfaction and outcomes. As healthcare systems transition from provider centric care to patient centric care, increasing efforts have been made to reduce patient waiting times. At the University of Virginia, the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center (ECCCC) has experienced a 30% growth...
Approximately 1 in 8 U.S. women will be diagnosed with new invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. An estimated 252,710 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S. in 2017. Mastectomy is recommended in over a third of early-stage breast cancer patients. Those women who elect to undergo breast reconstruction are counseled on surgical risks and...
There are currently 10 million American who need mobility assistance leading to an increase of 40 percent in demand for registered nurses by 2020 while the supply of registered nurses will only increase by 6 percent. This supply-demand gap can be partially addressed by a robot assistant to help an individual with limited mobility performs daily tasks.
The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), produced by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), has been in use in institutions of higher American education since the 1960s as a means of measuring incoming international students' English proficiency. But like any test, the TOEFL is imperfect. For instance, whereas a high TOEFL score may be sufficient to admit an international student to an American...
Large social events can influence traffic conditions and possibly lead to jams and incidents. This study leverages crowdsourced data to analytically evaluate the relationship between social events and traffic incidents in the city of Chicago. In particular, we collected data on social events from scraping online webpages, as well as traffic data from a twitter account that posted irregular traffic...
Increased awareness on climate change causing fossil fuels created a global movement to produce and use ethanol. As a result, several regulatory standards coupled with financial incentives which support the use of ethanol have been implemented in the past decade. However, the selling price of ethanol in the global market is still not competitive due to its high processing costs. In an attempt to reduce...
This paper focuses on understanding cognitive load, cognitive flexibility, cognitive efficiency, and their implications for learning. Cognitive load is commonly defined to be the total amount of mental effort that is being used by the working memory at a given time. Recently, researchers have shown that an Electroencephalograph (EEG) can be a reliable tool to measure the cognitive load that one may...
The Smart Automated Water Sprinkler (SAWS) System is an innovative approach to lawn irrigation that allows the watering pattern to match the contours of the yard. It utilizes a mapping technology to deliver water to only the marked grassy area of the property, avoiding water delivery to driveways, homes, fences, and other unintended landscape fixtures. Consequently, the SAWS system helps homeowners...
Effective recruiting is essential for building a successful football program, as it is the primary method by which college football teams acquire new players. The University of Virginia football recruiting staff works hard to direct its efforts toward recruits that fit Virginia's football culture and can lead to future wins. This paper describes four models and visuals that help the staff determine...
The amount of human generated debris entering the oceans was recorded at eight billion kilograms (kg) in 2010, and has been rising exponentially by 10% each year. The most common pollutant is plastic which composes about 80% of the debris. Plastic takes approximately 500 years to decompose, and in that time, it is harming wildlife while collecting in the ocean's circular currents called gyres. The...
This paper describes hardware developments in a wearable air quality sensor assembly for analyzing personal exposure to air pollution. According to the World Health Organization, exposure to air pollution is now the largest single environmental health risk globally, leading to approximately 7 million deaths in 2012 alone. Understanding personal exposure from traditional stationary and spatially disperse...
Motor vehicle crashes cause loss of life, property, and finances. It remains a focus of traffic safety research, uncovering useful information that can be directly applied to reduce these losses. Traditionally, modeling crash fatalities has been done using machine learning techniques, considering crash level variables such as roadway characteristics, lighting conditions, weather conditions, and the...
To enhance user experience, online content providers currently develop a finite set of pre-designed widgets to deploy on relevant news articles. The end goal is to match widgets with content that increases engagement, click-through to advertisements, and, ultimately, monetization. An alternative approach to achieve this goal is creating customized content for specific articles. Instead of finding...
This study focuses on the predictive identification of patients frequently revisiting the University of Virginia Health System Emergency Department. Identifying these patients can help the Emergency Department formulate strategies that improve patient care and decrease excess Emergency Department utilization. The Health System in particular faces a number of unique challenges in its ongoing mission...
In the 21st century, each country must make decisions on how to utilize modern technologies to maximize benefits and minimize repercussions. For example, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) needs to be able to share information efficiently with its allies while simultaneously preventing unwarranted access or attacks. These attacks pose a threat to the national security of the United States,...
The incidence of type 2 (insulin resistant) diabetes (T2D) is increasing, along with its complications of personal anguish and treatment costs. The American Diabetes Association recommends Lifestyle Modification (LM) both for the prevention and management of T2D. The basic premise of LM is that energy intake should be equal to energy output, or net carbohydrates consumed should roughly equal energy...
Increased interaction among distinct perspectives can lead to increased conflict. The multiplicity of available data can alleviate this burden by offering an informed avenue for comprehension. Parsing these data sources for relevant information is a time intensive and academically challenging task. Our research looks to explore the practicality of parsing these sources of data by attempting to surface...
With global flight distance projected to increase by a factor of four by 2050, contrail generation is expected to increase by a similar factor. Optimized contrail presence can lead to decreased net radiative forcing (RF): the phenomenon that occurs when heat is trapped within the Earth's atmosphere. RF is projected to increase by 280% by 2050, adding significantly to global warming. A system needs...
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