Someone else might crave excitement, but Dr. Natalya Pulaski wasenjoying her ordinary life. Then she received a chilling call from herbest friend—and the line mysteriously went dead. She felt in herbones something bad had happened. And that she had to get answers. Detective Michael DiPalma's Friday night plans did not includeworking a missing person's case—or uncovering a dead body. But something about Natalya's vivid green eyes and killer curves demanded his immediate attention. As they teamed up, it was clear the walls around their guarded hearts were about to crumble. Were they brave enough to take the fall?
With increasing demands for efficiency and product quality plus progress in the integration of automatic control systems in high-cost mechatronic and safety-critical processes, the field of supervision (or monitoring), fault detection and fault diagnosis plays an important role. The book gives an introduction into advanced methods of fault detection and diagnosis (FDD). After definitions of important terms, it considers the reliability, availability, safety and systems integrity of technical processes. Then fault-detection methods for single signals without models such as limit and trend checking and with harmonic and stochastic models, such as Fourier analysis, correlation and wavelets are treated. This is followed by fault detection with process models using the relationships between signals such as parameter estimation, parity equations, observers and principal component analysis. The treated fault-diagnosis methods include classification methods from Bayes classification to neural networks with decision trees and inference methods from approximate reasoning with fuzzy logic to hybrid fuzzy-neuro systems. Several practical examples for fault detection and diagnosis of DC motor drives, a centrifugal pump, automotive suspension and tire demonstrate applications.
Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.
