OBJECTIVE To investigate the role of clinical and socioeconomic variables as determinants of adherence to recommended diabetes care guidelines and assess differences in the process of care between diabetologists and general practitioners. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We identified diabetic residents in Torino, Italy, as of 31 July 2003, using multiple independent data sources. We collected dat...

Preliminaries and

Quality of a layout has the most direct impact in the manufacturability of a design. Traditionally, layout quality is ensured in the first order by design rules, i.e. if a layout is free of design rules violation, it is a good layout. It is assumed such a layout will be fabricated to specification. Moreover, a design rule clean layout also ensures the electrical performance of the circuit it re...

To design potentially successful quality improvement (QI) interventions, it is crucial to make use of detailed breakdowns of the implementation processes of successful and unsuccessful interventions. Process evaluation can throw light on the mechanisms responsible for the result obtained in the intervention group. It enables researchers and implementers to (1). describe the intervention in deta...

Clustering is mostly an unsupervised procedure and most of the clustering algorithms depend on assumptions and initial guesses in order to define the subgroups presented in a data set. As a consequence, in most applications the final clusters require some sort of evaluation. The evaluation procedure has to tackle difficult problems, which can be qualitatively expressed as: i. quality of cluster...

This paper summarizes the development of the technologies used to produce high quality sprayed concrete layers by robotizing a commercial shotcreting machine and automating the process used in the tunnelling construction industry. The proposed method provides the control system with the information of the properties of the pumping process, controlling the quality of the concrete layer by adjust...