University at Buffalo

About: University at Buffalo is a education organization based out in Buffalo, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 33773 authors who have published 63840 publications receiving 2278954 citations. The organization is also known as: UB & State University of New York at Buffalo.

Self-healing systems - survey and synthesis

Abstract: As modern software-based systems and applications gain in versatility and functionality, the ability to manage inconsistent resources and service disparate user requirements becomes increasingly imperative. Furthermore, as systems increase in complexity, rectification of system faults and recovery from malicious attacks become more difficult, labor-intensive, expensive, and error-prone. These factors have actuated research dealing with the concept of self-healing systems. Self-healing systems attempt to ''heal'' themselves in the sense of recovering from faults and regaining normative performance levels independently the concept derives from the manner in which a biological system heals a wound. Such systems employ models, whether external or internal, to monitor system behavior and use inputs obtaining therefore to adapt themselves to the run-time environment. Researchers have approached this concept from several different angles this paper surveys research in this field and proposes a strategy of synthesis and classification.

Illuminating the 'Black Box': A description of 4454 patient visits to 138 family physicians

Abstract: Background The content and context of family practice outpatient visits have never been fully described, leaving many aspects of family practice in a "black box," unseen by policymakers and understood only in isolation. This article describes community family practices, physicians, patients, and outpatient visits. Methods Practicing family physicians in northeast Ohio were invited to participate in a multimethod study of the content of primary care practice. Research nurses directly observed consecutive patient visits, and collected additional data using medical record reviews, patient and physician questionnaires, billing data, practice environment checklists, and ethnographic fieldnotes. Results Visits by 4454 patients seeing 138 physicians in 84 practices were observed. Outpatient visits to family physicians encompassed a wide variety of patients, problems, and levels of complexity. The average patient paid 4.3 visits to the practice within the past year. The mean visit duration was 10 minutes. Fifty-eight percent of visits were for acute illness, 24% for chronic illness, and 12% for well care. The most common uses of time were history-taking, planning treatment, physical examination, health education, feedback, family information, chatting, structuring the interaction, and patient questions. Conclusions Family practice and patient visits are complex, with competing demands and opportunities to address a wide range of problems of individuals and families over time and at various stages of health and illness. Multimethod research in practice settings can identify ways to enhance the competing opportunities of family practice to improve the health of their patients.

Friction at a Lubricated Line Contact Operating at Oscillating Sliding Velocities

Abstract: Although many contacts operate under unsteady loading and sliding conditions, friction behavior under such conditions is still not well understood. In this paper we report on a series of experiments that were run to examine friction-velocity characteristics of line contacts operating under unsteady sliding velocities in the mixed, elastohydrodynamic and hydrodynamic lubrication regimes. A periodic, time-varying velocity component was superimposed on a steady sliding speed in such a way that all three lubrication regimes could be covered in a cycle. It was found that as the frequency of oscillation was increased, a multi-valued friction coefficient appeared as a loop about the average (steady state) friction-velocity relation. It is shown that this behavior can be modeled by a characteristic time lag between a changing velocity and the corresponding steady state friction. The latter is described by a single equation that was matched to measured average friction data. In the mixed lubrication regime, which is where this lag most significantly affects friction behavior, the lag time increases with normal load and lubricant viscosity. It is shown that the time shift is not associated with a fixed characteristic distance. The observed delay arises due to entrainment and normal approach, which includes squeeze-films combined with rough surface contact deformations.