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In this paper, a voltage-mode universal biquadratic filter with high input impedance is presented. The proposed circuit has three input terminals and uses three differential voltage current conveyors (DVCCs), two grounded capacitors and two resistors. It can realize all the standard filter functions that are highpass, bandpass, lowpass, notch, and allpass filters by the adjustments of input voltage signals and offer the following features: no requirements for component matching conditions, the use of only grounded capacitors, high input impedance and low active and passive sensitivities.

On the Internet, the bilateral bargaining agents would often fall into failure or cause poor utility value at the end of bargaining under time constraints and with incomplete information. The core issue of bargaining between agents on the Internet is the bargaining strategies. However, under time constraints and with incomplete information, the bilateral agents tend to obtain poor utility value. This outcome usually causes the fail bargaining. To overcome the problem, this paper proposes a dynamic bargaining algorithm with novel and simple characteristics to make offers. The algorithm predicts the opponent's possible offers for the consecutive rounds with little information about its opponent's deadline, reservation price, and bargaining strategy. Then, it revises its offer function to maximize its utility in one possible agreement point. The experiments show that the algorithm would enhance the ratio of reaching agreement and the utility value at the end of the bargaining.

Background/AimsMetabolic syndrome (MetS) increases risk for developing serious health conditions, but MetS is rarely recorded as a diagnosis in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to compare an electronic data extraction process to a manual chart review in identifying patients with MetS.MethodsElectronic health records (EHR) of 48 randomly selected Geisinger Rural Aging Study (GRAS) participants (24 males, 24 females; age =65) were selected for review. A trained auditor collected information for each participant on biochemical measurements (including triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, glucose); blood pressure and measured height and weight. MetS was defined as having three of the five criteria based on ATP III guidelines. However, since waist circumference was not available for all participants, BMI >30 kg/m2 was used. Records were reviewed for a 48-month period, starting at date of GRAS study entry. Demographics, diagnosis codes, laboratory data, past medical history, medications, progress notes, and physician comments were included in the audit. Independently, an electronic data extraction of the EHR was used to identify subjects with MetS. Rates of agreement between the manual chart review and data extraction process were calculated. Discrepancies were examined for sources of disagreement and statistical agreement was assessed with Cohen?s Kappa.ResultsAs expected, very few subjects with an ICD-9 diagnosis code for MetS were identified (n=2).The manual chart review identified 27 subjects (56%) that met criteria based on ATP III guidelines. The independent electronic process identified 25 of these 27 subjects as having MetS and found an additional 2 subjects (inadvertently missed during manual chart review). The two cases that were missed using the electronic process had abnormal glucose values that were not available from the electronic data extraction. Agreement between the two methods was almost perfect (kappa=0.92).ConclusionsThis validation study demonstrates that an electronic data extraction process for identifying MetS has substantial agreement with the gold standard, a manual review of health records for clinical data. This process has the advantage of quickly querying large amounts of data that may be missed by manual chart review and can aid in collection of data for health outcomes research.