Vertical Farming Monitoring: How Does It Work and How Much Does It Cost?

Climate change, resource scarcity, and a growing world population are some of the problems facing traditional agriculture. For this reason, new cultivation systems are emerging, such as vertical farming. This is based on indoor cultivation, which is not affected by climatic conditions. However, vertical farming requires higher consumption of water and light, since in traditional agriculture those resources are free. Vertical cultivation requires the use of new technologies and sensors to reduce water and energy consumption and increase its efficiency. The sensorization of these systems makes it possible to monitor and evaluate their performance in real time. In addition, vertical farming faces economic uncertainty since its profitability has not been studied in depth. This article studies the most important variables when monitoring a vertical farming system and proposes the sensors to be used in the data acquisition system. In addition, this study presents a cost model for the installation of this type of system. This cost model is applied to a case study to evaluate the profitability of installing this type of infrastructure. The results obtained suggest that the investment made in VF installations could be profitable in a period of three to five years.

Application of Dynamic Fragmentation Methods in Multimedia Databases: A Review

Fragmentation is a design technique widely used in multimedia databases, because it produces substantial benefits in reducing response times, causing lower execution costs in each operation performed. Multimedia databases include data whose main characteristic is their large size, therefore, database administrators face a challenge of great importance, since they must contemplate the different qualities of non-trivial data. These databases over time undergo changes in their access patterns. Different fragmentation techniques presented in related studies show adequate workflows, however, some do not contemplate changes in access patterns. This paper aims to provide an in-depth review of the literature related to dynamic fragmentation of multimedia databases, to identify the main challenges, technologies employed, types of fragmentation used, and characteristics of the cost model. This review provides valuable information for database administrators by showing essential characteristics to perform proper fragmentation and to improve the performance of fragmentation schemes. The reduction of costs in fragmentation methods is one of the most desired main properties. To fulfill this objective, the works include cost models, covering different qualities. In this analysis, a set of characteristics used in the cost models of each work is presented to facilitate the creation of a new cost model including the most used qualities. In addition, different data sets or reference points used in the testing stage of each work analyzed are presented.

Estimating the cost impact of dressing choice in the context of a mass burns casualty event

Mass casualty burn events (MCBs) require intense and complex management. Silver-infused longer use dressings might help optimise management of burns in an MCB setting. We developed a model estimating the impact of dressing choice in the context of an MCB. The model was developed in Excel in collaboration with experienced emergency response clinicians. The model compares use of silver-infused dressings with use of traditional dressings in patients with partial thickness burns covering 30% of their body. Costs were estimated from a UK perspective as a proxy for a funded emergency response team and limited to cost of dressings, bandages, padding, analgesia and staff time. Expected patient costs and resource use were summarised over an acute 2-week intervention period and extrapolated to estimate possible time savings in a hypothetical MCB. Per patient costs were estimated at £2,002 (silver) and £1,124 (traditional) (a daily additional spend of £63). Per patient staff time was estimated at 864 minutes (silver) and 1,200 minutes (traditional) (a daily time saving of 24 minutes). Multiplying up to a possible MCB population of 20 could result in a saving equivalent to 9 staff shifts over the 2-week intervention period. The model was sensitive to type of silver dressing, frequency of dressing change and staff costs. We found increased costs through use of silver dressings but time savings that might help optimise burns management in an MCB. Exploring the balance between costs and staff time might help future MCB response preparation.

A Micro-Level Compensation-Based Cost Model for Resource Allocation in a Fog Environment

Fog computing aims to support applications requiring low latency and high scalability by using resources at the edge level. In general, fog computing comprises several autonomous mobile or static devices that share their idle resources to run different services. The providers of these devices also need to be compensated based on their device usage. In any fog-based resource-allocation problem, both cost and performance need to be considered for generating an efficient resource-allocation plan. Estimating the cost of using fog devices prior to the resource allocation helps to minimize the cost and maximize the performance of the system. In the fog computing domain, recent research works have proposed various resource-allocation algorithms without considering the compensation to resource providers and the cost estimation of the fog resources. Moreover, the existing cost models in similar paradigms such as in the cloud are not suitable for fog environments as the scaling of different autonomous resources with heterogeneity and variety of offerings is much more complicated. To fill this gap, this study first proposes a micro-level compensation cost model and then proposes a new resource-allocation method based on the cost model, which benefits both providers and users. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm ensures better resource-allocation performance and lowers application processing costs when compared to the existing best-fit algorithm.

Small Water Enterprise in Rural Rwanda: Business Development and Year-One Performance Evaluation of Nine Water Kiosks at Health Care Facilities

Small water enterprises (SWEs) have lower capital expenditures than centralized systems, offering decentralized solutions for rural markets. This study evaluated SWEs in rural Rwanda, where nine health care facilities (HCF) owned and operated water kiosks supplying water from onsite water treatment systems (WTS). SWEs were monitored for 12 months. Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient (r_s) was used to evaluate correlations between demand for kiosk water and community characteristics, and between kiosk profit and factors influencing the cost model. On average, SWEs distributed 15,300 L/month. One SWE ran at a loss, four had profit margins of ≤10% and four had profit margins of 45-75%. Factors influencing SWE performance were intermittent water supply (87% of SWE closures were due to water shortage), consumer demand (demand was high where populations already used improved water sources (r_s = 0.81, p = 0.02)), price sensitivity (demand was lower where SWEs had high prices (r_s = -0.65, p = 0.08)), and production cost (water utility tariffs negatively impacted SWE profits (r_s = -0.52, p < 0.01)). Sustainability was more favorable in circumstances where recovery of capital expenditures was not expected, and the demand for treated water was sufficient to fund operational expenditures. Future research is needed to assess the extent to which kiosk revenue can support ongoing operational costs of WTS and kiosks both at HCF and in other contexts.

Implementing precision cancer medicine in the public health services of Norway: the diagnostic infrastructure and a cost estimate

OBJECTIVE

Through the conduct of an individual-based intervention study, the main purpose of this project was to build and evaluate the required infrastructure that may enable routine practice of precision cancer medicine in the public health services of Norway, including modelling of costs.

METHODS

An eligible patient had end-stage metastatic disease from a solid tumour. Metastatic tissue was analysed by DNA sequencing, using a 50-gene panel and a study-generated pipeline for analysis of sequence data, supplemented with fluorescence in situ hybridisation to cover relevant biomarkers. Cost estimations compared best supportive care, biomarker-agnostic treatment with a molecularly targeted agent and biomarker-based treatment with such a drug. These included costs for medication, outpatient clinic visits, admission from adverse events and the biomarker-based procedures.

RESULTS

The diagnostic procedures, which comprised sampling of metastatic tissue, mutation analysis and data interpretation at the Molecular Tumor Board before integration with clinical data at the Clinical Tumor Board, were completed in median 18 (8-39) days for the 22 study patients. The 23 invasive procedures (12 from liver, 6 from lung, 5 from other sites) caused a single adverse event (pneumothorax). Per patient, 0-5 mutations were detected in metastatic tumours; however, no actionable target case was identified for the current single-agent therapy approach. Based on the cost modelling, the biomarker-based approach was 2.5-fold more costly than best supportive care and 2.5-fold less costly than the biomarker-agnostic option.

CONCLUSIONS

The first project phase established a comprehensive diagnostic infrastructure for precision cancer medicine, which enabled expedite and safe mutation profiling of metastatic tumours and data interpretation at multidisciplinary tumour boards for patients with end-stage cancer. Furthermore, it prepared for protocol amendments, recently approved by the designated authorities for the second study phase, allowing more comprehensive mutation analysis and opportunities to define therapy targets.

Hospitalization Cost Model of Pediatric Surgical Treatment of Chiari Type 1 Malformation

OBJECTIVES

To develop a cost model for hospitalization costs of surgery among children with Chiari malformation type 1 (CM-1) and to examine risk factors for increased costs.

STUDY DESIGN

Data were extracted from the US National Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project 2009 Kids' Inpatient Database. The study cohort was comprised of patients aged 0-20 years who underwent CM-1 surgery. Patient charges were converted to costs by cost-to-charge ratios. Simple and multivariable generalized linear models were used to construct cost models and to determine factors associated with increased hospital costs of CM-1 surgery.

RESULTS

A total of 1075 patients were included. Median age was 11 years (IQR 5-16 years). Payers included public (32.9%) and private (61.5%) insurers. Median wage-adjusted cost and length-of-stay for CM-1 surgery were US $13 598 (IQR $10 475-$18 266) and 3 days (IQR 3-4 days). Higher costs were found at freestanding children's hospitals: average incremental-increased cost (AIIC) was US $5155 (95% CI $2067-$8749). Factors most associated with increased hospitalization costs were patients with device-dependent complex chronic conditions (AIIC $20 617, 95% CI $13 721-$29 026) and medical complications (AIIC $13 632, 95% CI $7163-$21 845). Neurologic and neuromuscular, metabolic, gastrointestinal, and other congenital genetic defect complex chronic conditions were also associated with higher hospital costs.

CONCLUSIONS

This study examined cost drivers for surgery for CM-1; the results may serve as a starting point in informing the development of financial risk models, such as bundled payments or prospective payment systems for these procedures. Beyond financial implications, the study identified specific risk factors associated with increased costs.

Economic impact of Tegaderm chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) dressing in critically ill patients

PURPOSE

To estimate the economic impact of a TegadermTM chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) gel dressing compared with a standard intravenous (i.v.) dressing (defined as non-antimicrobial transparent film dressing), used for insertion site care of short-term central venous and arterial catheters (intravascular catheters) in adult critical care patients using a cost-consequence model populated with data from published sources.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A decision analytical cost-consequence model was developed which assigned each patient with an indwelling intravascular catheter and a standard dressing, a baseline risk of associated dermatitis, local infection at the catheter insertion site and catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI), estimated from published secondary sources. The risks of these events for patients with a Tegaderm CHG were estimated by applying the effectiveness parameters from the clinical review to the baseline risks. Costs were accrued through costs of intervention (i.e. Tegaderm CHG or standard intravenous dressing) and hospital treatment costs depended on whether the patients had local dermatitis, local infection or CRBSI. Total costs were estimated as mean values of 10,000 probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) runs.

RESULTS

Tegaderm CHG resulted in an average cost-saving of £77 per patient in an intensive care unit. Tegaderm CHG also has a 98.5% probability of being cost-saving compared to standard i.v. dressings.

CONCLUSIONS

The analyses suggest that Tegaderm CHG is a cost-saving strategy to reduce CRBSI and the results were robust to sensitivity analyses.

The ScanTrainer obstetrics and gynaecology ultrasound virtual reality training simulator: A cost model to determine the cost viability of replacing clinical training with simulation training

The aim of this study was to produce an economic cost model comparing the use of the Medaphor ScanTrainer virtual reality training simulator for obstetrics and gynaecology ultrasound to achieve basic competence, with the traditional training method. A literature search and survey of expert opinion were used to identify resources used in training. An executable model was produced in Excel. The model showed a cost saving for a clinic using the ScanTrainer of £7114 per annum. The uncertainties of the model were explored and it was found to be robust. Threshold values for the key drivers of the model were identified. Using the ScanTrainer is cost saving for clinics with at least two trainees per year to train, if it would take at least six lists to train them using the traditional training method and if a traditional training list has at least two fewer patients than a standard list.