Quantum Accelerated Causal Tomography: Circuit Considerations Towards Applications

In this research we study quantum computing algorithms for accelerating causal inference. Specifically, we investigate the formulation of causal hypothesis testing presented in [\textit{Nat Commun} 10, 1472 (2019)]. The theoretical description is constructed as a scalable quantum gate-based algorithm on qiskit. We present the circuit construction of the oracle embedding the causal hypothesis and assess the associated gate complexities. Our experiments on a simulator platform validates the predicted speedup. We discuss applications of this framework for causal inference use cases in bioinformatics and artificial general intelligence.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Surat 2006 Floods: A Citizens’ Report

Surat is situated at the mouth of the river Tapi where it meets the Arabian Sea and has for centuries been a flood-affected area. The most recent floods however, were different because of the magnitude of their effect. Nearly 90 per cent of the households were affected; six of the seven wards of the city had water standing for days. It crippled the economy and affected people's coping abilities. In the wake of the floods the Department of Human Resource Development of the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University and the Centre for Social Studies conducted a study looking at how people coped with the disaster and the impact of the flood on their lives and the economy. It offers some pointers about how the impact can be mitigated in similar situations in the future

Surat 2006 Floods: A Citizens’ Report

Surat is situated at the mouth of the river Tapi where it meets the Arabian Sea and has for centuries been a flood-affected area. The most recent floods however, were different because of the magnitude of their effect. Nearly 90 per cent of the households were affected; six of the seven wards of the city had water standing for days. It crippled the economy and affected people's coping abilities. In the wake of the floods the Department of Human Resource Development of the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University and the Centre for Social Studies conducted a study looking at how people coped with the disaster and the impact of the flood on their lives and the economy. It offers some pointers about how the impact can be mitigated in similar situations in the future

Visualizing Quantum Circuit Probability -- estimating computational action for quantum program synthesis

This research applies concepts from algorithmic probability to Boolean and quantum combinatorial logic circuits. A tutorial-style introduction to states and various notions of the complexity of states are presented. Thereafter, the probability of states in the circuit model of computation is defined. Classical and quantum gate sets are compared to select some characteristic sets. The reachability and expressibility in a space-time-bounded setting for these gate sets are enumerated and visualized. These results are studied in terms of computational resources, universality and quantum behavior. The article suggests how applications like geometric quantum machine learning, novel quantum algorithm synthesis and quantum artificial general intelligence can benefit by studying circuit probabilities.Comment: 17 page

CellTree: A New Paradigm for Distributed Data Repositories

We present CellTree, a new architecture for distributed data repositories. The repository allows data to be stored in largely independent, and highly programmable cells, which are “assimilated” into a tree structure. The data in the cells are allowed to change over time, subject to each cell’s own policies; a cell’s policies also govern how the policies themselves can evolve. A design goal of the architecture is to let a CellTree evolve organically over time, and adapt itself to multiple applications. Different parts of the tree may be maintained by different sets of parties interested in the respective parts, and the core mechanisms used for maintaining the tree can also vary across the tree and over time. We present provable guarantees of liveness, correctness and consistency (the last one being a generalization of the typical blockchain guarantee of “persistence,” when data is dynamic), when the CellTree architecture is instantiated using a simple set of modules. These properties can be guaranteed for individual cells that satisfy requisite trust assumptions, even if these trust assumptions do not hold for other cells in the tree. We also discuss several features of a CellTree that can be exploited by applications. We leave it for future work to develop full-fledged applications on top of this powerful architecture

CLIPSyntel: CLIP and LLM Synergy for Multimodal Question Summarization in Healthcare

In the era of modern healthcare, swiftly generating medical question summaries is crucial for informed and timely patient care. Despite the increasing complexity and volume of medical data, existing studies have focused solely on text-based summarization, neglecting the integration of visual information. Recognizing the untapped potential of combining textual queries with visual representations of medical conditions, we introduce the Multimodal Medical Question Summarization (MMQS) Dataset. This dataset, a major contribution to our work, pairs medical queries with visual aids, facilitating a richer and more nuanced understanding of patient needs. We also propose a framework, utilizing the power of Contrastive Language Image Pretraining(CLIP) and Large Language Models(LLMs), consisting of four modules that identify medical disorders, generate relevant context, filter medical concepts, and craft visually aware summaries. Our comprehensive framework harnesses the power of CLIP, a multimodal foundation model, and various general-purpose LLMs, comprising four main modules: the medical disorder identification module, the relevant context generation module, the context filtration module for distilling relevant medical concepts and knowledge, and finally, a general-purpose LLM to generate visually aware medical question summaries. Leveraging our MMQS dataset, we showcase how visual cues from images enhance the generation of medically nuanced summaries. This multimodal approach not only enhances the decision-making process in healthcare but also fosters a more nuanced understanding of patient queries, laying the groundwork for future research in personalized and responsive medical careComment: AAAI 202

Surat 2006 Floods: A Citizens’ Report

Surat is situated at the mouth of the river Tapi where it meets the Arabian Sea and has for centuries been a flood-affected area. The most recent floods however, were different because of the magnitude of their effect. Nearly 90 per cent of the households were affected; six of the seven wards of the city had water standing for days. It crippled the economy and affected people's coping abilities. In the wake of the floods the Department of Human Resource Development of the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University and the Centre for Social Studies conducted a study looking at how people coped with the disaster and the impact of the flood on their lives and the economy. It offers some pointers about how the impact can be mitigated in similar situations in the future.Surat flood; floods; SMC;

Effect of temperature and time delay in centrifugation on stability of select biomarkers of nutrition and non-communicable diseases in blood samples

Introduction: Preanalytical conditions are critical for blood sample integrity and poses challenge in surveys involving biochemical measurements. A cross sectional study was conducted to assess the stability of select biomarkers at conditions that mimic field situations in surveys. Material and methods: Blood from 420 volunteers was exposed to 2 – 8 °C, room temperature (RT), 22 – 30 °C and > 30 °C for 30 min, 6 hours, 12 hours and 24 hours prior to centrifugation. After different exposures, whole blood (N = 35) was used to assess stability of haemoglobin, HbA1c and erythrocyte folate; serum (N = 35) for assessing stability of ferritin, C-reactive protein (CRP), vitamins B12, A and D, zinc, soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), tryglicerides, albumin, total protein and creatinine; and plasma (N = 35) was used for glucose. The mean % deviation of the analytes was compared with the total change limit (TCL), computed from analytical and intra-individual imprecision. Values that were within the TCL were deemed to be stable. Result: Creatinine (mean % deviation 14.6, TCL 5.9), haemoglobin (16.4%, TCL 4.4) and folate (33.6%, TCL 22.6) were unstable after 12 hours at 22- 30°C, a temperature at which other analytes were stable. Creatinine was unstable even at RT for 12 hours (mean % deviation: 10.4). Albumin, CRP, glucose, cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides, vitamins B12 and A, sTfR and HbA1c were stable at all studied conditions. Conclusion: All analytes other than creatinine, folate and haemoglobin can be reliably estimated in blood samples exposed to 22-30°C for 12 hours in community-based studies

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Population‐based cohort study of outcomes following cholecystectomy for benign gallbladder diseases

Background The aim was to describe the management of benign gallbladder disease and identify characteristics associated with all‐cause 30‐day readmissions and complications in a prospective population‐based cohort. Methods Data were collected on consecutive patients undergoing cholecystectomy in acute UK and Irish hospitals between 1 March and 1 May 2014. Potential explanatory variables influencing all‐cause 30‐day readmissions and complications were analysed by means of multilevel, multivariable logistic regression modelling using a two‐level hierarchical structure with patients (level 1) nested within hospitals (level 2). Results Data were collected on 8909 patients undergoing cholecystectomy from 167 hospitals. Some 1451 cholecystectomies (16·3 per cent) were performed as an emergency, 4165 (46·8 per cent) as elective operations, and 3293 patients (37·0 per cent) had had at least one previous emergency admission, but had surgery on a delayed basis. The readmission and complication rates at 30 days were 7·1 per cent (633 of 8909) and 10·8 per cent (962 of 8909) respectively. Both readmissions and complications were independently associated with increasing ASA fitness grade, duration of surgery, and increasing numbers of emergency admissions with gallbladder disease before cholecystectomy. No identifiable hospital characteristics were linked to readmissions and complications. Conclusion Readmissions and complications following cholecystectomy are common and associated with patient and disease characteristics