Risk sharing arrangements between hospitals and payers together with penalties imposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) are driving an interest in decreasing early readmissions. There are a number of published risk models predicting 30day readmissions for particular patient populations, however they often exhibit poor predictive performance and would be unsuitable for use in a clinical setting. In this work we describe and compare several predictive models, some of which have never been applied to this task and which outperform the regression methods that are typically applied in the healthcare literature. In addition, we apply methods from deep learning to the five conditions CMS is using to penalize hospitals, and offer a simple framework for determining which conditions are most cost effective to target.

11A key issue associated with Fluidized Bed Combustion of biomass is agglomeration. The presence of 12 high quantities of alkali species in biomass ash leads to the formation of sticky alkali-silicate liquid 13 phases during combustion, and consequently the adhesion and agglomeration of bed material. This 14 review principally examines probable mechanisms of agglomeration and the effects of operational 15 variables in reducing its severity. Additionally, an overview of monitoring and prediction of 16 agglomerate formation is given. Two key mechanisms of agglomeration are apparent in literature, 17 and both may occur concurrently dependent on fuel composition. Coating-induced agglomeration is 18 defined by the interaction of alkali metals in fuel ash with the bed material, commonly silica sand, to 19 form an alkali-silicate melt. Melt-induced agglomeration is defined by the presence of sufficient 20 amounts of both alkali compounds and silica liquid phases sourced from the fuel ash to form a 21 eutectic mixture. Physical mechanisms, such as tumble agglomeration and sintering, may further 22 enhance either of the coating-induced or melt-induced mechanisms. Of the operational variables volumes of non-combustible contaminants, high moisture contents and, in most applications, 63 requires a large amounts of pre-processing/pre-treatment with specialised transportation. Due to 64 these challenges, technologies such as fluidized bed combustion (FBC) boilers have been employed. 65 FBC offers a number of advantages, such as combustion of different fuel types, blends, and ranges of 66 qualities, features commonly referred to under the umbrella term of [5]. Hundreds 67 Page 4 of 75 of full-scale bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) [6, p. 7] and circulating fluidized bed (CFB) [6, p. 8] boilers 68have been deployed around the world [7, 8] for power generation and/or steam sales to industrial or 69 chemical plant sites. However, each FBC plant development has to overcome slagging, fouling, 70 corrosion and, most significantly, agglomeration issues resulting from the composition and 71 behaviour of the biomass fuel stock [9]. 72

This is a repository copy of Agglomeration and the effect of process conditions on fluidized bed combustion of biomasses with olivine and silica sand as bed materials : pilot-scale investigation.

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