Architectures for block Toeplitz systems

In this paper efficient VLSI architectures of highly concurrent algorithms for the solution of block linear systems with Toeplitz or near-to-Toeplitz entries are presented. The main features of the proposed scheme are the use of scalar only operations, multiplications/divisions and additions, and the local communication which enables the development of wavefront array architecture. Both the mean squared error and the total squared error formulations are described and a variety of implementations are given

Assessing harm in gastrointestinal surgery using linked routine national databases

Background: Hospital administrative data have been used to evaluate population-level surgical outcome in the UK. However, these data do not account for harm recorded outside of the hospital setting, nor pertain to health status as health status is under-represented by conventional diagnostic coding. A systematic review of the literature identified studies reporting on changes in quality of life associated with surgical adverse events (SAEs). The evaluated studies demonstrated a significant correlation between short-term surgical harm and long-term physical and mental well-being. Interactions between harm and health status have not previously been studied using population-level data. Hypothesis: Patient-level linkage of multiple routine databases can improve our understanding, measurement and risk adjustment of harm in gastrointestinal surgery. Methods: Almost a tenth of primary care patients in England with linkage of Clinical Practice Research Datalink, Hospital Episodes Statistics, National Cancer Intelligence Network, Office of National Statistics and Index of Multiple Deprivation databases were studied. Nine gastrointestinal surgical procedures were evaluated to measure short-term harm (technical SAEs, systemic SAEs) and long-term health status (postoperative psychiatric morbidity, postoperative symptoms). Risk factors derived from linked databases were evaluated against outcome including 30-day mortality, readmission, prolonged hospital stay, technical SAEs, systemic SAEs, one-year mortality, postoperative psychiatric morbidity and postoperative symptoms by binary logistic regression analysis. Predictive performance was compared between models with predictor covariates derived from linked databases and those derived from hospital data only by assessing discrimination. Results: Overall, 73655 patients who underwent 75854 procedures between April 2000 and March 2011 were evaluated. At least one SAE within 30 days of surgery was recorded in 10.7% of procedures. Of all recorded SAEs, 28% were identified in primary care data only. The proportion of post-discharge SAEs was 42.5%. Within twelve months after surgery, postoperative psychiatric morbidity was recorded in 11.4% of procedures and postoperative symptoms in 16.9% of procedures. Regression analysis revealed that technical SAEs were associated with increased risk of poor postoperative health status. When adjusted for SAEs, new onset postoperative psychiatric morbidity was associated with significantly increased risk of one-year mortality (OR=1.48, p<0.001). Postoperative mental health status therefore had a significant impact on survival, and this association was particularly strong in patients undergoing surgery for upper gastrointestinal malignancy. Prospective studies must therefore explore the role of early recognition and development of interventions to reduce the impact of this type of harm. Linked databases improved the performance of prediction models for all outcome. However, this was though to be of clinical value in models predicting postoperative psychiatric morbidity only. Conclusions: Linked routine databases characterized the overall burden of surgical harm and poor health status in gastrointestinal surgery. Using this important information resource, interactions between short and long-term outcome were identified. Prediction of poor health status improved to a level that could inform policy. Further development of analytical methods and validation of data may pave the way for large-scale evaluations of quality within integrated health systems using linked routine databases.  Open Acces

Building Community and Collaboration Applications for MMOGs

Supporting collaborative activities among the online players are one of the major challenges in the area of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG), since they increase the richness of gaming experience and create more engaged communities. To this direction, our study has focused on the provision of services supporting and enhancing the players' in-game community and collaboration activities. We have designed and implemented innovative tools exploiting a game adaptation technology, namely, the In-game Graphical Insertion Technology (IGIT), which permits the addition of web-based applications without any need from the game developers to modify the game at all, nor from the game players to change their game installation. The developed tools follow a design adapted to the MMOG players' needs and are based on the latest advances on Web 2.0 technology. Their provision is performed through the core element of our system, which is the so-called Community Network Game (CNG) Server. One of the important features provided by the implemented system's underlying framework is the utilization of enhanced Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology for the distribution of user-generated live video streams. In this paper, we focus on the architecture of the CNG Server as well as on the design and implementation of the online community and collaboration tools

Madness and society in Britain

The fiftieth anniversary of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and the publication of a detailed multidisciplinary social history of British psychiatry and mental health in recent decades have offered an opportunity to take a helicopter view and reflect on the relation between psychiatry and changing British society. We argue that the time has come to move on from the rhetoric of deinstitutionalisation and community mental healthcare to lead public debate and advocacy for the needs of the mentally ill in the new era of ‘meta-community psychiatry and mental healthcare’. We need to respond effectively to the increasing awareness of mental health problems across society, aiming for a pluralist, integrated and well-funded reform led by joint professional and patient interests which could be unstoppable if we all work together

gbouras13/plassembler: v1.4.0 (2023-10-27)

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Adds &lt;code&gt;--no_chromosome&lt;/code&gt; option to &lt;code&gt;plassembler long&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;plassembler run&lt;/code&gt; after a request to allow for the assembly of read sets that have only plasmids.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Using this will skip Flye and create a dummy 3MB chromosome full of A's and will allow for the downstream completion of Plassembler to recover only the plasmids in your reads.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Fixes another bug here #37&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt

gbouras13/pypolca: v0.2.0

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Fixes bug where &lt;code&gt;pypolca&lt;/code&gt; would warn it found 0 variants when in fact there were variants.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Also would result in the polishing not working.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Please upgrade if you have used v0.1.1!&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Importantly, this release adds benchmarking of &lt;code&gt;pypolca&lt;/code&gt; v0.2.0 vs POLCA more thoroughly.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt

Plassembler v 1.5.0 Database

&lt;p&gt;Holds the Plassembler v 1.5.0 database.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;These include the mash sketches and metadata from PLSDB as of 20 November 2023 (&lt;a href="https://ccb-microbe.cs.uni-saarland.de/plsdb/plasmids/download/"&gt;https://ccb-microbe.cs.uni-saarland.de/plsdb/plasmids/download/&lt;/a&gt;).&nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Specifically, it includes the PLSDB release 2023_11_03_v2.&lt;/p&gt

gbouras13/plassembler: v1.5.0

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you upgrade to v1.5.0, you will need to update the database using &lt;code&gt;plassembler download&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plassembler v1.5.0 incorporates a new database thanks to the recent PLSDB release &lt;a href="https://ccb-microbe.cs.uni-saarland.de/plsdb/"&gt;2023_11_03_v2&lt;/a&gt;. Thanks @biobrad for the heads up.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt

gbouras13/plassembler: v1.4.1 (30 Oct 2023)

&lt;p&gt;Fixes bug with &lt;code&gt;plassembler run&lt;/code&gt;, which would exit ungracefully if the isolate had more than 1 chromosome, but no plasmids were recovered by Unicycler (e.g. this vibrio ATCC &lt;a href="https://www.atcc.org/products/17802"&gt;17802&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt

gbouras13/hybracter_benchmarking: Release for DOI (v0.1.0)

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Initial release. Should work fine.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Mostly made so there is a Zenodo DOI I can cite.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt