A forecasting tool for a hospital to plan inbound transfers of COVID-19 patients from other regions.

BACKGROUND: In April 2021, the province of Ontario, Canada, was at the peak of its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity in the Toronto metropolitan area was insufficient to handle local COVID patients. As a result, some patients from the Toronto metropolitan area were transferred to other regions. METHODS: A spreadsheet-based Monte Carlo simulation tool was built to help a large tertiary hospital plan and make informed decisions about the number of transfer patients it could accept from other hospitals. The model was implemented in Microsoft Excel to enable it to be widely distributed and easily used. The model estimates the probability that each ward will be overcapacity and percentiles of utilization daily for a one-week planning horizon. RESULTS: The model was used from May 2021 to February 2022 to support decisions about the ability to accept transfers from other hospitals. The model was also used to ensure adequate inpatient bed capacity and human resources in response to various COVID-related scenarios, such as changes in hospital admission rates, managing the impact of intra-hospital outbreaks and balancing the COVID response with planned hospital activity. CONCLUSIONS: Coordination between hospitals was necessary due to the high stress on the health care system. A simple planning tool can help to understand the impact of patient transfers on capacity utilization and improve the confidence of hospital leaders when making transfer decisions. The model was also helpful in investigating other operational scenarios and may be helpful when preparing for future outbreaks or public health emergencies.

Enhanced-Precision Measurement of Glutathionyl Hemoglobin by MALDI-ToF MS.

Glutathionyl-hemoglobin (HbSSG) is used as a human biomarker to pinpoint systemic oxidative stress caused by various pathological conditions, noxious lifestyles, and exposure to drugs and environmental or workplace toxicants. Measurement by MALDI mass spectrometry is most frequently used, however, the method suffers from excessive uncontrolled variability. This article describes the improvement of a MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry method for HbSSG measurement through enhanced precision, based on strict control of sample preparation steps and spreadsheet-based data analysis. This improved method displays enhanced precision in the analysis of several hundred samples deriving from studies in different classes of healthy and diseased human subjects. Levels span from 0.5% (lower limit of detection) up to 30%, measured with a precision (as SE%) < 0.5%. We optimized this global procedure to improve data quality and to enable the Operator to work with a reduced physical and psychological strain. Application of this method, for which full instruction and the data analysis spreadsheet are supplied, can encourage the exploitation of HbSSG to study human oxidative stress in a variety of pathological and living conditions and to rationally test the efficacy of antioxidant measures and treatments in the frame of health promotion.

Spreadsheet analysis of the field-driven start-up flow in a microfluidic channel.

We discuss, in this article, the solution method of the unsteady electroosmotic flow of Newtonian fluid in a square microfluidic channel cross-section in the framework of spreadsheet analysis. We demonstrate the implementation of the finite difference scheme, which is used for the discretization of the transport equations governing the flow dynamics of the present problem, in the spreadsheet tool. Also, we have shown the implementation details of different boundary conditions, which are typically used for the underlying electrohydrodynamics in a microfluidic channel, in the spreadsheet analysis tool. We show that the results obtained from the spreadsheet analysis match accurately with the numerical solutions for both the electrostatic potential distribution and the flow velocity. Our results of this analysis justify the credibility of the spreadsheet tool for capturing the intricate details of the electrically actuated microflows during the initial transiences, that is, for the start-up flows and the phenomenon due to the electrical double layer effect, quite effectively. The inferences of this analysis will open up a new research paradigm of microfluidics and microscale transport processes by providing the potential applicability of the spreadsheet tools to obtain the flow physics of our interest in a very intuitive and less expensive manner.

Estimated glomerular filtration rate in children: adapting existing equations for a specific population.

BACKGROUND: Creatinine-based glomerular filtration rate (GFR)-estimating equations frequently do not perform well in populations that differ from the development populations in terms of mean GFR, age, pathology, ethnicity, and diet. After first evaluating the performance of existing equations, the aim of this study was to demonstrate the utility of an in-house modification of the equations to better fit a specific population. METHODS: Estimated GFR using 8 creatinine-based equations was first compared to 2-sample 51Cr-ethylenediaminetetra-acetic acid plasma clearance in non-cancer and cancer groups independently. The groups were then divided into development and validation sets. Using the development set data, the Microsoft® Excel SOLVER add-in was used to modify the parameters of 7 equations to better fit the data. Using the validation set data, the performance of the original and modified equations was compared. RESULTS: Two hundred fifty-six GFR measurements were performed in 160 children. GFR was overestimated in both groups (non-cancer 4.3-22.6 ml/min/1.73 m2, cancer 17.2-46.6 ml/min/1.73 m2). The root mean square error (RMSE) was 19.1-21.8 ml/min/1.73 m2 (non-cancer) and 18.6-20.8 ml/min/1.73 m2 (cancer). The P30 values were 49.1-73.0% (non-cancer) and 19.6-66.0% (cancer). Modifying the parameters of seven equations resulted in significant improvements in the P30 values in the non-cancer (65.0-85.0%) and cancer (79.6-87.8%) groups. CONCLUSIONS: Modifying the parameters of pediatric GFR estimating-equations using a simple Excel-based tool significantly improved their accuracy in both non-cancer and cancer populations. Graphical abstract.

ExcelAutomat 1.3: Fragment analysis based on the distortion/interaction-activation strain model.

The distortion/interaction-activation strain model (D/I-ASM), a fragment analysis method, is applied to study the structure-reactivity relationship in reactions. The application of D/I-ASM involves the generation of input files for points along a reaction profile, submission of input files to a quantum software package, processing of parameters from the resulting output files and generation of graphical plots. The ExcelAutomat tool (Laloo et al., J. Comput. Aided Mol. Des. 2017, 31, 667) provides a framework and library in Visual Basic for Application programming language to process such files. New routines were written in ExcelAutomat 1.3 to facilitate processing of files for D/I-ASM. The worksheet "ASM" was included where initial parameters needed can be defined. The routines for D/I-ASM were tested successfully on bimolecular nucleophilic substitution, cycloaddition, and barrierless reactions. The automation of fragment analysis by ExcelAutomat 1.3 is compatible with Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc. The extensible tool processes files from Gaussian and GAMESS-US packages. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Introduction.

Health and Life studies are well known for the huge amount of data they produce, such as high-throughput sequencing projects (Stephens et al., PLoS Biol 13(7):e1002195, 2015; Hey et al., The fourth paradigm: data-intensive scientific discovery, vol 1. Microsoft research Redmond, Redmond, 2009). However, the value of the data should not be measured by its amount, but instead by the possibility and ability of researchers to retrieve and process it (Leonelli, Data-centric biology: a philosophical study. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2016). Transparency, openness, and reproducibility are key aspects to boost the discovery of novel insights into how living systems work (Nosek et al., Science 348(6242):1422-1425, 2015).

Data Analysis Using R Programming.

Beginning RR is an open-source, freely available, integrated software environment for data manipulation, computation, analysis, and graphical display. The R environment consists of *a data handling and storage facility, *operators for computations on arrays and matrices, *a collection of tools for data analysis *graphical capabilities for analysis and display, and *an efficient, and continuing developing programming algebra-like programming language which consists of loops, conditionals, user-defined functions, and input and output capabilities. Many R programs are available for biostatistical analysis in Genetic Epidemiology. Typical examples are shown.

A computational application for multi-skill nurse staffing in hospital units.

BACKGROUND: Approaches to nurse staffing are commonly concerned with determining the minimum number of care hours according to the illness severity of patients. However, there is a gap in the literature considering multi-skill and multi-shift nurse staffing. This study addresses nurse staffing per skill category, at a strategical decision level, by considering the organization of work in shifts and coping with variability in demand. METHODS: We developed a method to determine the nursing staff levels in a hospital, given the required patient assistance. This method relies on a new mathematical model for complying with the legislation and guidelines while minimizing salary costs. A spreadsheet-based tool was developed to embed the model and to allow simulating different scenarios and evaluating the impact of demand fluctuations, thus supporting decision-making on staff dimensioning. RESULTS: Experiments were carried out considering real data from a Brazilian hospital unit. The results obtained by the model support the current total staff level in the unit under study. However, the distribution of staff among different skill categories revealed that the current real situation can be improved. CONCLUSIONS: The method allows the determining of staff level per shift and skill depending on the mix of patients' illness severity. Hospital management is offered the possibility of optimizing the staff level using a spreadsheet, a tool most managers are familiar with. In addition, it is possible to evaluate the implications of decisions on workforce dimensioning by simulating different demand scenarios. This tool can be easily adapted to other hospitals, using local rules and legislation.

ExcelAutomat: a tool for systematic processing of files as applied to quantum chemical calculations.

The processing of the input and output files of quantum chemical calculations often necessitates a spreadsheet as a key component of the workflow. Spreadsheet packages with a built-in programming language editor can automate the steps involved and thus provide a direct link between processing files and the spreadsheet. This helps to reduce user-interventions as well as the need to switch between different programs to carry out each step. The ExcelAutomat tool is the implementation of this method in Microsoft Excel (MS Excel) using the default Visual Basic for Application (VBA) programming language. The code in ExcelAutomat was adapted to work with the platform-independent open-source LibreOffice Calc, which also supports VBA. ExcelAutomat provides an interface through the spreadsheet to automate repetitive tasks such as merging input files, splitting, parsing and compiling data from output files, and generation of unique filenames. Selected extracted parameters can be retrieved as variables which can be included in custom codes for a tailored approach. ExcelAutomat works with Gaussian files and is adapted for use with other computational packages including the non-commercial GAMESS. ExcelAutomat is available as a downloadable MS Excel workbook or as a LibreOffice workbook.

Cost-effectiveness of non-surgical periodontal therapy for patients with type 2 diabetes in the UK.

AIM: Periodontal therapy has been shown to reduce glycated haemoglobin in patients with diabetes, although considerable uncertainty remains regarding the sustainability of such changes. We evaluate the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical periodontal therapy and rigorous maintenance treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes and periodontitis from a provider perspective in the UK. METHOD: Lifetime costs relating to periodontal treatment were modelled for a cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes. The projected lifetime impact of changes in glycated haemoglobin on diabetes treatment costs and quality adjusted life expectancy were estimated from a published simulation model. Costs and outcomes were combined to estimate the Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio for periodontal therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes. RESULTS: The Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio was £28,000 per Quality Adjusted Life-Year for a man aged 58 with glycated haemoglobin of 7%-7.9%. The results were particularly sensitive to assumptions on the impact of periodontal therapy on glycated haemoglobin, the proportion of patients who comply with maintenance therapy and the proportion of compliant patients who respond to treatment. CONCLUSION: Assuming improvements in glycated haemoglobin can be maintained, periodontal therapy may be cost-effective for patients with type 2 diabetes at acceptable cost-per-Quality Adjusted Life-Year thresholds in the UK.

PyGlobal: A toolkit for automated compilation of DFT-based descriptors.

Density Functional Theory (DFT)-based Global reactivity descriptor calculations have emerged as powerful tools for studying the reactivity, selectivity, and stability of chemical and biological systems. A Python-based module, PyGlobal has been developed for systematically parsing a typical Gaussian outfile and extracting the relevant energies of the HOMO and LUMO. Corresponding global reactivity descriptors are further calculated and the data is saved into a spreadsheet compatible with applications like Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice. The efficiency of the module has been accounted by measuring the time interval for randomly selected Gaussian outfiles for 1000 molecules. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Pesticide regulations for agriculture: Chemically flawed regulatory practice.

Two categories of pesticide soil models now exist. Government regulatory agencies use pesticide fate and transport hydrology models, including versions of PRZM.gw. They have good descriptions of pesticide transport by water flow. Their descriptions of chemical mechanisms are unrealistic, having been postulated using the universally accepted but incorrect pesticide soil science. The objective of this work is to report experimental tests of a pesticide soil model in use by regulatory agencies and to suggest possible improvements. Tests with experimentally based data explain why PRZM.gw predictions can be wrong by orders of magnitude. Predictive spreadsheet models are the other category. They are experimentally based, with chemical stoichiometry applied to integral kinetic rate laws for sorption, desorption, intra-particle diffusion, and chemical reactions. They do not account for pesticide transport through soils. Each category of models therefore lacks what the other could provide. They need to be either harmonized or replaced. Some preliminary tests indicate that an experimental mismatch between the categories of models will have to be resolved. Reports of pesticides in the environment and the medical problems that overlap geographically indicate that government regulatory practice needs to account for chemical kinetics and mechanisms. Questions about possible cause and effect links could then be investigated.

Mimer: an automated spreadsheet-based crystallization screening system.

In this paper, a simple low-cost alternative to large commercial systems for preparing macromolecular crystallization conditions is described. Using an intuitive spreadsheet-based approach, the system allows the rapid calculation of relevant pipetting volumes given known stock-solution concentrations and incorporates the automatic design of custom crystallization screens via the incomplete-factorial and grid-screen approaches. Automated dispensing of the resulting crystallization screens is achieved using a generic and relatively inexpensive liquid handler.

Development and Application of a Weighted Gingivitis and Periodontitis (W-G/P) Score System in Cats.

The adaptation for use in cats of a weighted periodontal scoring system developed in dogs is described. The system uses standardized methods to score the extent of gingivitis and periodontitis of buccal tooth surfaces, weighted by size of teeth and adjusted for missing teeth and size of the cat.

The Comparative Pathology Workbench: Interactive visual analytics for biomedical data.

Pathologists need to compare histopathological images of normal and diseased tissues between different samples, cases, and species. We have designed an interactive system, termed Comparative Pathology Workbench (CPW), which allows direct and dynamic comparison of images at a variety of magnifications, selected regions of interest, as well as the results of image analysis or other data analyses such as scRNA-seq. This allows pathologists to indicate key diagnostic features, with a mechanism to allow discussion threads amongst expert groups of pathologists and other disciplines. The data and associated discussions can be accessed online from anywhere in the world. The Comparative Pathology Workbench (CPW) is a web-browser-based visual analytics platform providing shared access to an interactive "spreadsheet" style presentation of image and associated analysis data. The CPW provides a grid layout of rows and columns so that images that correspond to matching data can be organised in the form of an image-enabled "spreadsheet". An individual workbench can be shared with other users with read-only or full edit access as required. In addition, each workbench element or the whole bench itself has an associated discussion thread to allow collaborative analysis and consensual interpretation of the data. The CPW is a Django-based web-application that hosts the workbench data, manages users, and user-preferences. All image data are hosted by other resource applications such as OMERO or the Digital Slide Archive. Further resources can be added as required. The discussion threads are managed using WordPress and include additional graphical and image data. The CPW has been developed to allow integration of image analysis outputs from systems such as QuPath or ImageJ. All software is open-source and available from a GitHub repository.

An IT-based self-checking system of spreadsheet exercises for learners with visual impairments.

PURPOSE: In vocational education and training of computer literacy as part of vocational rehabilitation, learners often work on problem-solving exercises as self-study assignments, and check if their answers are correct. Sighted learners can get information on their incorrect answers by comparing their answers with the correct answers. However, learners with visual impairments largely depend on their teachers for getting this feedback. To remove this dependence, we designed a self-checking system for learners with visual impairments to verify the correctness of their answers. In this paper, we report the results of a usability study to evaluate whether learners with visual impairments can self-check spreadsheet problem-solving exercises using our system in a teacherless environment. METHODS: Usability evaluation experiment was conducted using 2 × 2 crossover design with people with visual impairments (n = 11). The participants checked their answers (detected and corrected errors) after working on problem-solving exercises in two ways: (i) manually; and (ii) using our system. The system usability was evaluated by measuring Detection-And-Correction (DAC) ratio as effectiveness, time taken and the number of steps required for DAC as efficiency, and System Usability Scale score as satisfaction. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The results show that all the participants could complete the DAC task by using our system, and the time required for DAC task was significantly reduced by using our system as compared to by checking manually. Our system enables learners with visual impairments to self-check problem-solving exercises answers. However, to increase the user satisfaction, the number of required keystrokes needs to be decreased.

Vocational rehabilitation for learners with visual impairments to improve their computer literacy is becoming increasingly important.Learners with visual impairments have the potential to acquire computer literacy in a teacherless environment by using simple assistive software like our self-checking system.Simple assistive software for learners with visual impairments like our self-checking system may have a positive effect not only on learners with visual impairments but also on sighted people.Moreover, our system reduces the teaching load of the teachers so that they can be more effective in helping learners with visual impairments.

Analysis of an event study using the Fama-French five-factor model: teaching approaches including spreadsheets and the R programming language.

The current financial education framework has an increasing need to introduce tools that facilitate the application of theoretical models to real-world data and contexts. However, only a limited number of free tools are available for this purpose. Given this lack of tools, the present study provides two approaches to facilitate the implementation of an event study. The first approach consists of a set of MS Excel files based on the Fama-French five-factor model, which allows the application of the event study methodology in a semi-automatic manner. The second approach is an open-source R-programmed tool through which results can be obtained in the context of an event study without the need for programming knowledge. This tool widens the calculus possibilities provided by the first approach and offers the option to apply not only the Fama-French five-factor model but also other models that are common in the financial literature. It is a user-friendly tool that enables reproducibility of the analysis and ensures that the calculations are free of manipulation errors. Both approaches are freely available and ready-to-use.

Spreadsheet software to assess locomotor disability to quantify permanent physical impairment.

CONTEXT: Assessment of physical disability is an important duty of a plastic surgeon especially for those of us who are in an institutional practice. AIM: The Gazette of India notification gives a guideline regarding the assessment of the disability. However, the calculations as per the guidelines are time consuming. In this article, a spreadsheet program which is based on the notification is presented. The aim of this article is to design a spreadsheet program which is simple, reproducible, user friendly, less time consuming and accurate. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This spreadsheet program was designed using the Microsoft Excel. The spreadsheet program was designed on the basis of the guidelines in the Gazette of India Notification regarding the assessment of Locomotor Disability to Quantify Permanent Physical Impairment. Two representative examples are presented to help understand the application of this program. RESULTS: Two spreadsheet programs, one for upper limb and another for the lower limb are presented. The representative examples show the accuracy of the program to match the results of the traditional method of calculation. CONCLUSION: A simple spreadsheet program can be designed to assess disability as per the Gazette of India Notification. This program is easy to use and is accurate.

A Spreadsheet-Based Short Time Forecasting Method for the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As we are writing this paper, the number of daily affected COVID patients is around 0.38 million and with active cases over 3 million in India. This large number of active cases is putting the medical facilities under severe strain. Many researchers have proposed many ways of forecasting the COVID-19 patients but they mainly worked on the cumulative cases and moreover, all those methods required considerable skill and computational cost. In this work, a simple spreadsheet-based forecasting model has been developed which will help to predict the number of active cases in the immediate future i.e., the next few days. This information can be useful for emergency management. The difficulty which is generally faced in predicting the active cases is that the dynamics of active cases has a complex dependence on a number of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) and social factors and can undergo sharp changes. Quadratic, cubic and quartic polynomial functions have been applied to capture these peaks and observed that the quadratic function helps in better prediction of the peak. The accuracy of the prediction methods is measured as well as it is tried to observe how the methods predict data for the next 1 day, 3 days and 6 days. A prediction method analogous to weather forecasting method is recommended in this work where the prediction for each day gets updated depending on the most recent data available. This method has also been found to perform well even in the period there were sharp changes in the trend due to imposition of strict NPI measures.