A hybrid approach to conjunctive partial evaluation of logic programs

Conjunctive partial deduction is a well-known technique for the partial evaluation of logic programs. The original formulation follows the so called online approach where all termination decisions are taken on-the-fly. In contrast, offline partial evaluators first analyze the source program and produce an annotated version so that the partial evaluation phase should only follow these annotations to ensure the termination of the process. In this work, we introduce a lightweight approach to conjunctive partial deduction that combines some of the advantages of both online and offline styles of partial evaluation. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under grant TIN2008-06622-C03-02 and by the Generalitat Valenciana under grant ACOMP/2010/042.Vidal Oriola, GF. (2011). A hybrid approach to conjunctive partial evaluation of logic programs. En Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation. Springer Verlag (Germany). 6564:200-214. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20551-4_13S2002146564Ben-Amram, A., Codish, M.: A SAT-Based Approach to Size Change Termination with Global Ranking Functions. In: Ramakrishnan, C.R., Rehof, J. (eds.) TACAS 2008. LNCS, vol. 4963, pp. 218–232. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)Bruynooghe, M., De Schreye, D., Martens, B.: A General Criterion for Avoiding Infinite Unfolding during Partial Deduction of Logic Programs. In: Saraswat, V., Ueda, K. (eds.) Proc. 1991 Int’l Symp. on Logic Programming, pp. 117–131 (1991)Christensen, N.H., Glück, R.: Offline Partial Evaluation Can Be as Accurate as Online Partial Evaluation. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems 26(1), 191–220 (2004)Codish, M., Taboch, C.: A Semantic Basis for the Termination Analysis of Logic Programs. Journal of Logic Programming 41(1), 103–123 (1999)De Schreye, D., Glück, R., Jørgensen, J., Leuschel, M., Martens, B., Sørensen, M.H.: Conjunctive Partial Deduction: Foundations, Control, Algorihtms, and Experiments. Journal of Logic Programming 41(2&3), 231–277 (1999)Hruza, J., Stepánek, P.: Speedup of logic programs by binarization and partial deduction. TPLP 4(3), 355–380 (2004)Jones, N.D., Gomard, C.K., Sestoft, P.: Partial Evaluation and Automatic Program Generation. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1993)Leuschel, M.: Homeomorphic Embedding for Online Termination of Symbolic Methods. In: Mogensen, T.Æ., Schmidt, D.A., Sudborough, I.H. (eds.) The Essence of Computation. LNCS, vol. 2566, pp. 379–403. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)Leuschel, M.: The DPPD (Dozens of Problems for Partial Deduction) Library of Benchmarks (2007), http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~mal/systems/dppd.htmlLeuschel, M., Elphick, D., Varea, M., Craig, S., Fontaine, M.: The Ecce and Logen Partial Evaluators and Their Web Interfaces. In: Proc. of PEPM 2006, pp. 88–94. IBM Press (2006)Leuschel, M., Vidal, G.: Fast Offline Partial Evaluation of Large Logic Programs. In: Hanus, M. (ed.) LOPSTR 2008. LNCS, vol. 5438, pp. 119–134. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)Lloyd, J.W., Shepherdson, J.C.: Partial Evaluation in Logic Programming. Journal of Logic Programming 11, 217–242 (1991)Somogyi, Z.: A System of Precise Modes for Logic Programs. In: Shapiro, E.Y. (ed.) Proc. of Third Int’l Conf. on Logic Programming, pp. 769–787. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1986

168 COVID-19 mRNA vaccine booster cutaneous reactions reported to the AAD/ILDS dermatology registry

Background: In summer 2021, several countries including the U.S. authorized COVID-19 mRNA vaccine booster doses ≥6 months after completion of a patient’s primary vaccine series. The aim of this study was to characterize vaccine cutaneous reactions following a booster dose of mRNA vaccine reported to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) & International League of Dermatologic Societies (ILDS) COVID-19 Dermatology registry. Methods: In December 2020, the AAD/ILDS registry was adapted to include COVID-19 vaccine skin reactions. In September 2021 the registry also solicited COVID-19 vaccine booster reactions either as new cases or updates to existing entries. Results: From Dec 2020-Jan 2022, 994 cases of vaccine skin reactions were entered in the registry, of which 44 records indicated the presence or absence of cutaneous reactions following a booster dose. Of 44 records, 31(71%) developed a cutaneous reaction to the booster dose and 29% developed a reaction to the 1st and/or 2nd dose but not the booster. Of the 31 patients who developed a reaction to the booster dose, 22 reacted to the booster alone, 1 reacted to the 1st & booster, 3 reacted to the 2nd & booster, and 5 reacted to all three doses. The most common morphologies among all booster reactions were local injection site reactions (n=31), delayed large local reaction (n=7), erythromelalgia (n=3), and vesicular reactions (n=3). Conclusion: Booster reactions represent a small portion of COVID vaccine reactions in the registry. Infrequent reporting could be due slow booster uptake, reporter fatigue, and/or booster reactions may truly be less frequent than reactions to the initial series. Dermatologists should be aware that cutaneous reactions to boosters are possible, even when reactions to dose 1 & 2 did not occur; none of the reactions were life-threatening

Retropubic, laparoscopic and mini-laparoscopic radical prostatectomy : a prospective assessment of patient scar satisfaction

Published online: 26 October 2014PURPOSE: To compare patient scar satisfaction after retropubic, standard laparoscopic, mini-laparoscopic (ML) and open radical prostatectomy (RP). METHODS: Patients undergoing RP for a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer at a single academic hospital between September 2012 and December 2013 were enrolled in this prospective nonrandomized study. The patients were included in three study arms: open surgery, VLP and ML. A skin stapler was used for surgical wound closure in all cases. Demographic and main surgical outcomes, including perioperative complications, were analyzed. Surgical scar satisfaction was measured using the Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Questionnaire (POSAS) and the two Body Image Questionnaire (BIQ) scales, respectively, recorded at skin clips removal and either at 6 months after surgery. RESULTS: Overall, 32 patients were enrolled and completed the 6 month of follow-up. At clips removal, laparoscopic approaches offered better scar result than open surgery according to the POSAS. However, at 6 months, no differences were detected between VLP and open, whereas ML was still associated with a better scar outcome (p = 0.001). This finding was also confirmed by both BIQ scales, including the body image score (ML 9.8 ± 1.69, open 15.73 ± 3.47, VLP 13.27 ± 3.64; p = 0.001) and the cosmetic score (ML 16.6 ± 4.12, open 10 ± 1.9, LP 12.91 ± 3.59; p = 0.001). Small sample size and lack of randomization represent the main limitations of this study. CONCLUSIONS: ML RP offers a better cosmetic outcome when compared to both open and standard laparoscopic RP, representing a step toward minimal surgical scar. The impact of scar outcome on RP patients' quality of life remains to be determined

Ultraviolet Radiation on the Skin:A Painful Experience?

Excessive exposure of skin to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) has dramatic clinical effects in humans, and it is a significant public health concern. Discomfort and sensory changes caused by skin sunburn are the main common features experienced by many of us, a phenomena triggered by the combination of long and short wavelengths radiation (UVA and UVB, respectively). Although the biological processes underlying UVR exposure are not fully understood, in the last few years many studies have made significant progress in characterizing sunburn at the cellular and molecular levels, making use of both humans and laboratory animal models. Here we review and reason that UVR can be used as an excellent model of sensitization and inflammation for pain research. UVR, particularly UVB, produces a controllable and sterile inflammation that causes a robust dose‐dependent hypersensitivity with minimal confounding effects. Importantly, we show that UVR animal models precisely recapitulate the sensory, cellular, and molecular changes observed in human skin, giving it great confidence as a translational model. Furthermore, in this article, we give an overview of the pharmacology underlying UVB inflammation, the latest advances in the field, and potential new targets for inflammatory pain